


The Lost and the Wretched

by Veldeia



Series: Captain America/Iron Man Bingo 2015 [11]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Body Horror, Changelings, Curses, Drama, Fae & Fairies, First Meetings, Identity Porn, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Reanimation, Slow Burn, Some Gory Imagery, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Stark Feels, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-05-17 10:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 58,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5865481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veldeia/pseuds/Veldeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his reanimation, Tony has yet to find a reason to continue his existence that isn’t hatred or bitterness. After decades of captivity in Arcadia, Steve doesn’t know if he even has a soul anymore. When the vampires of the Covenant of the Shield organize a mission to rescue Steve, it is a new beginning for both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Day

**Author's Note:**

> This AU is very loosely inspired by the World of Darkness role-playing games—that is, I grabbed a bunch of concepts that I like and ran with them, twisting them to my own needs. There are similarities in names and ideas, but this is _not_ a WoD story, and no knowledge of it is required.
> 
> The story began its life as a fill for Cap-IM Bingo 2015, round 2, and was finished for WIP Big Bang 2017. Thank you to my BB artist, [MassiveSpaceWren](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MassiveSpaceWren/pseuds/MassiveSpaceWren), for making arts! You can find a tumblr post for the art [here](http://massivespacewren.tumblr.com/post/163062985878/my-art-for-the-wip-big-bang-i-was-lucky-to-get).
> 
> **Warnings:** In this AU, Tony is Frankenstein’s (well, Yinsen’s) monster. As in, literally made of spare body parts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally a bingo fill for the prompt “au: supernatural”, and was beta'd by [antigrav_vector](http://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector) and [morphia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/morphia/pseuds/morphia), thank you so much you two! :)

There were days when Tony was glad to be alive, if his current existence could be called that. They were rare, though.

He was never mad at Yinsen. How could he be? The alchemist had been a prisoner, just like Tony, and the first words he’d ever said to Tony when he awoke had been an apology. Yinsen had done what he’d done at gunpoint, had been horrified it had worked against all odds, and then he’d died during their desperate escape, when Tony hadn’t yet learned to wield his new powers.

Tony blamed their captors, those Hunters who’d imagined they could use him to gain new tools for their war against unnatural beings. The irony didn’t escape Tony that they had actually created yet another one to forward that goal.

They had not pulled their punches when they’d attacked him. Though his memory of _before_ was patchy at best, he could still remember the attack as clearly as if it had been yesterday. Remembered how the explosion had torn him apart, and the excruciating pain that seemed to last forever before he lost consciousness, knowing without the slightest doubt that he wouldn’t wake up again.

It was a miracle that his head had remained in one piece. Nothing else had.

Of course, Tony also blamed himself. There was a poetic justice in it, he had to give them that. He’d built his career on war, on the very same explosives and guns that the Hunters had used against him and his military escort. There was so much blood on his hands that he’d never be able to wash it away.

Now, he was made up of the remains of his victims.

He didn’t know how many parts there were, or how many people they originated from. Aside from his head, he was quite sure his right hand was his own. The left, definitely not, nor his legs. And his chest was such a sad patchwork that he wouldn’t even begin to guess. Of course, the blue fire at the very center of it, a fusion of technology and magic, was very much Tony’s creation. Though the alchemist had reanimated Tony, keeping that fire burning had been something Yinsen had not been able to do on his own, his talents limited to his own, gruesome discipline.

Tony would’ve been spared so much suffering if he hadn’t bothered. He would have faded away in a matter of weeks, and he would be at peace now. But no, he hadn’t wanted to die. Still didn’t. Not yet. There were still days, every now and then, when he thought that there must be a reason he’d been brought back. A reason other than spending his days exacting his revenge on Hunters and ordinary terrorists alike, hoping in vain that with enough good deeds, he could somehow balance all his past mistakes, and find a feeling that wasn’t hatred or bitterness. Days when he believed that he could regain his humanity, somehow. There were rumors that it could be done, and although Tony was always quick to say those modern-day Pinocchio tales were urban legends and a load of crap, on the rare days when he felt optimistic, he clung to that distant hope.

**********

Every single day was the same for Steve.

He woke up, and he went to the pits. He fought.

In the beginning, he lost every time, but he got better. After each day, his Master had him patched up, and the next day, he fought again.

A few times, when he was still new to it all, he refused to fight, because the men and women and creatures he was fighting were others just like him who had done nothing wrong, but that did him no good. He’d only get beat up worse, and even though he knew his injuries would be healed soon enough, it still hurt. And he’d still have to fight the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that.

Days became weeks, months, years—decades? He couldn’t tell. At first, he tried to keep track of them, to draw tally marks on the wall of his cell, but he kept forgetting whether he had already done it that day, and finally, he stopped caring.

Whenever Steve saw his reflection in a mirror, he could barely recognize himself. _Before_ , he had been nothing but skin and bones, a sickly, scrawny man, who had participated in that fateful ritual because they had thought it could give him powers that would make him a better soldier. In a twisted way, it had worked. The days in the fighting pits of the Fair Folk had left their mark, and turned him into that muscular brute who stared back at him from the looking glass.

He’d tried to escape, of course. He wasn’t the first or the last to try, and sometimes, so he heard, there were people who succeeded. Not Steve, though. Never. His Master, that terrifying creature with red skin and a skull-like face, always found him. Always brought him back, to another day of fighting.

He would still try again. They could make a fighting dog out of him, but they could never destroy his spirit. Which was, of course, exactly why they liked him so much.

Sometimes, he dreamed of home, although he no longer even remembered what home looked like. His memories were fleeting things, and he couldn’t be sure which ones were real. He couldn’t even remember his mother’s face anymore.

Arcadia, the realm of the Fair Folk, was not a place for humans. It did things to your head. Some said it took your soul. Steve didn’t know what it’d feel like to lose his soul, but he did feel like he had lost a lot of himself, no matter how much he tried to rebel. Deep down, he was starting to believe he’d never get away. Not after so many days and years and so many failed escape attempts. And even if he should manage to get out, what would he do then? Who was he, now, if he wasn’t the champion of his Master?

**********

“Sir, you have visitors,” Jarvis’s metallic voice echoed over the intercom. “They’re waiting for you in the lobby.”

“I’ll be right there,” Tony replied, and started unbuttoning his shirt, still gazing at the mirror in front of him.

Unlike the brightly glowing blue arclight and the vessel that held it, the stitched seams criss-crossing his body were not visible if you didn’t know to look for them. He always saw them himself, but only because he knew exactly where they were. When he used his powers, though, those seams would glow on his skin with the bright electric blue of the arclight, clear for everyone to see. That was why he never did that without the armor to cover his true nature.

Even Pepper had no idea, although unlike most humans, she did know it was Tony inside the armor. He had tried to tell her the whole story, once, but he just couldn’t figure out how to put it into words. “Oh, by the way, Pep, did you ever read Mary Shelley’s book? Yeah, I’m the monster.” No. She was better off not knowing. Safer, as well. As his personal assistant, she had already learned a fair bit about the hidden unnatural horrors that most people thought existed only in stories. Tony owed it to her to protect her from the worst of it.

She knew, of course, that there was something wrong, something different about Tony. That he was no longer the man he’d been. People tended to notice it, sooner or later. When they spent too much time with him, they started growing restless, with this nagging feeling that something was _off_ , though they had no idea what it might be.

And the vampires knew everything.

Tony wasn’t a big fan of vampires, but for some odd reason, they were big, fanged fans of his. He had never told them a thing about himself, but soon after his reanimation and return, and that whole fiasco with Obie and the golems, he’d been contacted by Prince Fury of the Covenant of the Shield, in all his ridiculous shady pretentiousness, eyepatch and long leather coat and all, a veritable archetype of the modern vampire.

Fury had been the one to initiate Tony into the supernatural world that he would’ve adamantly refused to believe in before he’d become a part of it. As it happened, they had been keeping an eye on him since he was a kid, because unbeknownst to Tony, his father had been more than just a genius engineer—he had also been dabbling in magic, and working together with the vampires of the Covenant.

Here they were, again, the leeches, standing in the tastefully decorated lobby of his mansion, looking as suave and confident as they would in a crypt or a graveyard. They were eyeing Jarvis’s mechanical form with their disinterested, dead eyes. Animated metal was of no use to vampires. Neither was reanimated flesh, but that didn’t mean Tony was safe. Vampires were dangerous creatures, and he had absolutely zero trust in them.

There were two of them this time, a man and a woman. Tony already knew Natasha, as frightening as she was beautiful, the contrast between her coppery hair and her alabaster skin as striking as ever. The man had a bow slung across his back, and he almost looked like a human, though a handsome one, and clearly aware of it, too. That was one thing about vampires: they were always even more egoistic than Tony had been, which was a damn impressive achievement.

“Stark,” Natasha said, spitting the name out like something gone sour. “The Prince wants to see you. Clint and I are here to make sure you’ll be there.”

“I’m honored he sent his children instead of what’s his name, Ghoulson the ghoul? Must be something really important this time. What do I need to bring? Chalk and salt? Power tools? My armor?”

“Better be prepared for everything,” the other vampire, Clint, said. “Don’t know the details, but I heard portals will be involved.”

“Fucking Hell,” Tony said, making a face. “Nothing good ever came out of a portal.”

**********

It was a day like any other for Steve.

He woke up to the bright sunlight filtering in through the bars on his window, tinted green by the leaves of the surrounding trees. The view was actually beautiful, as most things in Arcadia tended to be, but it was always a deceptive beauty. He had learned that the hard way: when you tried to run through the woods to escape, the paths would lead you in circles and all the plants would grow thorns and thick vines to trip you, tear your clothes and skin, and slow you down.

Steve sat up, stretching. His skin felt a little too tight between the shoulder blades, where the healer had regrown it over the bone-deep gash yesterday’s monstrosity had given him. He had won, of course, but it had been close, one of the more difficult fights he’d had in a while. The creature had been all claws and teeth and scales—and most likely it had also been an ordinary person, at some point in its life. Steve had been lucky. He looked different, sure, but at least he still looked like a human being.

Food was waiting for him on the table, as always. In the early days, he’d spent a few nights awake trying to find out how it got there, because he’d thought it might offer an opportunity for escape, but there wasn’t one. No one opened the door, no one came in to bring it. One moment it wasn’t there, and then it was. The first time, he’d thought he must’ve just fallen asleep and missed it, but it had happened again, and again, no matter how steadily he stared at the table. Another example of fae magic.

It was the same food he always had, a bowl of surprisingly tasty porridge and a big chunk of meat. The latter came in a variety of shapes and sizes, and Steve tried not to think what sort of an animal it was from. He had never seen a pig or a cow here. Today, it was charred. Sometimes, it was raw. He ate it anyway, because the next time he’d see food would be tomorrow morning, unless his Master was in a bad mood.

Right on schedule, as soon as he had finished eating, the door opened, and one of his Master’s many servants came for him. Steve wasn’t entirely sure about it, but he suspected most of these servants were also like him, ordinary men and women who had spent immeasurable years in this place, barely anything of their original selves remaining.

Others joined the usual procession, both fighters and servants, the Master himself coming last, keeping watch. The path they took was, as they tended to be, entirely different from yesterday’s: instead of an autumn scene of colorful maples, they walked through a forest of giant redwoods, the ground covered with ferns.

The arena was in the middle of this forest, and it was rustic compared to the many elaborate constructions Steve had fought in, not much more than a large clearing, the terraced rows of seats surrounding it made of unpainted wood.

Steve’s opponent for the day turned out to be a little girl.

She stood opposite to him in the clearing, a delicate thing less than half his height, with long black hair and a simple white dress. The gathered fae and slaves in the audience were murmuring to one another excitedly, waiting for one of them to make the first move.

Steve stepped closer. He didn’t want to fight her. He never wanted to fight anyone. Still, he knew that surrendering would do neither of them any good, either.

The girl lifted her eyes from Steve’s toes, and looked at him—and of course, she was no vulnerable child. Her eyes were bottomless pools of silver, so cold that Steve felt a chill run through him just looking into them, like icy claws sinking into his chest.

She raised a hand towards him, and he had to act before it got any worse. He leaped forwards, struck her hand aside, and aimed a punch at her face. She dodged it, whirling to the side like a wisp of glacial wind.

It turned out to be a long fight, with the ice elemental he was facing clearly aiming to tire him. He didn’t go for that, but kept holding back. He could tell she was making the mistake many had done before her when it came to Steve: assuming that since he was so big and muscly, he must also be stupid. He’d come into this place a much smaller man, used to relying on his wits. In the end, it was the elemental who began flagging first, and Steve was able to finish the match with a brutal and inelegant knockout.

All in all, it hadn’t been a bad fight. He wouldn’t even need to see the healer today.

**********

“How is that a fairy?” Tony blurted out in disbelief. “I've seen demons that look less demonic than this guy.”

The skillfully drawn, detailed picture Fury had placed on the meeting room table in front of Tony was the archetype of something straight out of Hell: a red, skull-like face with entirely black eyes. All that was missing were horns.

“There's a reason we call 'em fae and not fairies these days, Stark,” Fury replied in a long-suffering tone. “Personally, I call them a menace and a pain in the butt.”

“Fair enough. I'm still going to stick with fairy, though. I like the mental image of that thing with little pink wings. So, you're absolutely sure Red Fairy here has Rogers?”

Fury replied with another drawing, this one depicting a blonde man, human-looking with really impressive musculature, his shirtless state emphasizing that nicely.

“That doesn't really look like—” Tony began.

Fury set a third picture next to the beefy guy, this one a faded black-and-white photo. It was one that Tony remembered from his dad's notes, the ones Fury had handed him when he'd been trying to read up on the supernatural world. The man in the photo was the opposite of the one in the drawing: skinny and slouched, dressed in baggy clothes. Still, there was an undeniable similarity to their faces.

“The thing about Arcadia is that it changes you,” Fury explained, as if Tony wasn't aware of that already. “The nature of the change depends on many things and is widely debated in the mage community, but trust me, it's Rogers.”

“How did you even get these?” Tony asked, motioning at the two drawings. “From what I understand, the Fair Folk aren't exactly welcoming towards your kind.”

“That they're not, which is why I recruited one of theirs,” Fury said complacently.

“No offense, but I'm not going to believe any self-respecting fairy would ever agree to work for you.”

“They wouldn't. A changeling did.”

In the standard nomenclature, changelings were those poor souls who had somehow escaped from captivity by the fae. If this mission to rescue Rogers would succeed, that label would apply to him, too. From what Tony had heard, most changelings were more than a few fries short of a Happy Meal. That could explain the willingness of such an individual to strike an agreement with Fury. Spying on the powerful and unpredictable fairies was a really dangerous thing to do. Almost as dangerous as openly assaulting them.

“Isn't that against your rules, hiring creatures that aren't fanged or blood-bound?” he asked, mainly out of curiosity. It wasn't usual for vampires to work with those below themselves, which pretty much included everyone else on the planet.

“The stupid-ass rules of the stuffed-up geezers, yeah. The way I rule my Covenant, we've never paid too much heed to those. You're sitting here, aren't you?”

“Well yes, but I am doing this _pro bono_ , because it's dad's fault the guy got stuck there in the first place, and because I'm kind of curious about Fairyland.”

Fury raised his one visible eyebrow. “Does this mean I can count you in?”

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what I just said,” Tony confirmed. “When are we leaving, and who else is on the team?”

**********

They were on their way home through the woods, the procession just like it had been in the morning: three fighters, the other two a little more beaten up than Steve, and two handlers flanking each of the fighters, with the Master keeping the rear.

They were perhaps halfway back when something broke the routine that had been repeated so many times Steve had lost count years ago.

They were waylaid.

A group of beings cut off their path, and it was instantly obvious to Steve that they were neither fae nor their servants. He wasn’t quite sure how he was so certain about it, it was a feeling, as if something was missing. Perhaps that touch of madness that came with this place. Most of them looked like humans: five figures dressed in black leather, stepping with the grace and purpose that Steve had often seen in the fighting pits, like predators.

The sixth individual was different, both in looks and how he—it?—felt. This was a being that appeared less out of place in this twisted fairytale realm, clad in a suit of armor that was pure gleaming gold from head to toe, with a glowing disk of bright electric blue in the middle of its chest. But though the appearance might have been fitting, there was a strange aura of the unnatural about the armor-clad figure. The fae, as demonic as they were, held a strong connection to nature, and this being was utterly against that. There was also, somehow, a sadness, a feeling of loss.

Steve didn’t have much time to dwell on his odd premonitions concerning this golden figure, because the situation was moving forwards.

“We only want one man,” one of the human-looking beings, a red-haired woman, declared in a cold and commanding tone. “Steve Rogers. Give him to us, and the rest of you can go on with your despicable lives.”

That took Steve by surprise. All the servants and fighters around him were looking at him curiously. Their Master made his way past the rest of the procession, stepping in front of them to face this unexpected threat.

“I happen to like him a lot, but I am always willing to negotiate. Perhaps we can come to an agreement,” the red-skulled fae said, his smooth voice an odd contrast to his looks.

“Cut a deal with the fae? What do you take us for?” a man holding a bow groaned, and his grimace revealed a pair of sharp canines. Not a human, then, but a vampire, and from the depths of long lost memory, Steve realized he knew the emblem these assailants wore on their sleeves: the Covenant of the Shield, the people who had orchestrated the ritual that stranded him here. Why would they want him back now, after so many years?

“Surely you wouldn’t be foolish enough to pick a fight with the fae in our own land?” the Master said. To Steve, his confidence seemed feigned. Was it possible that the Master was worried that these vampires could do him harm?

This was a chance unlike any Steve had had during his years of captivity.

His wrists and ankles were bound with massive manacles, but they weren’t too heavy for him to lift, not with the strength he had gained in this place. He swung his arms, smashing the metal straight into the face of one of his handlers.

**********

All right, that was something Tony hadn’t been expecting. He’d been sure that Rogers would be a broken man, a husk of a human, his spirit and his sanity long gone. This Steve Rogers was definitely the man from the drawing, not the one from the photos: tall and broad in the shoulders. Shirtless, too. Very pleasing to the eye. And clearly not beaten to submission, since he was fighting for his freedom.

With Rogers taking the initiative, any chance of an agreement with his fae Master was gone. Not that it had ever been a realistic option. Personally, Tony would’ve made a deal with the Devil himself rather than one of these slippery fiends.

Natasha, Clint and the rest of Fury’s lackeys leapt into action, targeting the group of not-quite-humans behind their Master. Red was going to be Tony’s problem, first and foremost, because none of the vampires had talents quite like his.

He raised both hands, focused, and put everything he could muster into one overwhelming wave of _wrongness_ , aiming it straight at the fae.

For what felt like ages but can’t have been more than seconds, the fae hesitated, frozen in his spot, eyes nailed on Tony.

Tony saw that behind his captor, Rogers had broken free of his handlers, but instead of making his way towards the rescuing troupe of vampires, he headed off the path, straight into the woods. Bad idea.

He had just enough time to see Natasha break apart from the fray and go after Rogers when the Red Fairy shrugged off Tony’s magical strike, and lunged towards him, ramming straight into his chest and knocking him over.

The minutes after that were a blur. Fighting the fae was different from fighting any other supernatural being Tony had faced so far: it wasn’t just that his opponent was stronger and faster than he was, armor or not, but he was also somehow twisting Tony’s perception, giving him a feeling like vertigo, and making half his punches and bolts miss their mark. He tried to project his true nature at his enemy again, but it did no good with the element of surprise gone.

He was losing the fight, and he knew it. When he heard, somewhere far in the distance, Clint’s voice calling “Goldie! We have Rogers! Retreat, now!” he was only too happy to oblige.

Unlike their arrival, which had been a slow, stealthy march through these woods, their escape was a mad, desperate rush. Tony had no idea how the vampires were navigating towards the spot where Fury’s pet mage and his protectors were waiting, but despite all the stories he’d heard of the treacherous nature of these lands, they soon reached the site, and the awaiting open portal.

They stumbled through the rift in the fabric of the realms, back into the real world, into the hall imbued with protective magic that Fury’s Covenant has set up for the occasion. Behind them, the portal closed with a whoosh.

Tony looked around, checking whether everyone had made it. There was the mage, Selvig, looking surprised at their success, and Fury’s vampires—all seven of them, looking a little ruffled, but no injuries to speak of. Natasha was holding Steve Rogers’s hand.

Rogers raised his head and looked right into Tony’s eyes.

Tony froze, a strange shiver running through him.

Rogers had the bluest eyes, and there was an amazing depth to that gaze: so much tenacity, such a fighting spirit, that Tony could easily understand how Rogers had made it through all those years in captivity, and compassion, despite of all the horrors he must have seen. It felt like he was looking straight into Tony’s long-dead heart, and knew how Tony was struggling, which was ridiculous, because obviously he had no idea who Tony was; Tony was still wearing the armor and Rogers couldn’t even see his face. It was almost frightening.

There, in the cold concrete room, surrounded by vampires, in those few seconds that passed, Tony actually felt something that he hadn’t felt since he had awoken into this wretched not-quite-life: a strange warmth that he couldn’t even name. He felt—hopeful?

The moment passed all too soon, with Natasha tugging at Rogers’s hand to lead him out of the room. No doubt Fury had a welcome reception of some sort planned for him, but Tony hadn’t been invited to it.

Coulson the ghoul met him at the door, to tell him that Fury would like his written account of what had happened, but other than that, he was free to go. There were probably a few more words there, but Tony was barely listening.

All he could think of was that he needed to see more of Steve Rogers.


	2. On Second Thought

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exactly one year ago, I posted a bingo fill that was always meant to be Chapter 1 of a much longer story. I've been working on said story on and off, between numerous challenges with deadlines. It's still not finished. I usually avoid posting WIPs, but I really wanted to post something new on the one year anniversary to show that this story has, in fact, not been forgotten and abandoned, so, here you go: Chapter 2.
> 
> The current status of the story is that I have 7 chapters and about 35k words, with a projected, outlined goal of 10 chapters and 50k. The plan from now on is to post a new chapter roughly every two weeks. Hopefully having deadlines to meet will help me to finally finish the whole thing!
> 
> Beta thanks for this chapter go to [antigrav_vector](http://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector) and [Lets_call_me_Lily](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lets_call_me_Lily/pseuds/Lets_call_me_Lily)! <3

Fury and his underlings filled Steve in on what had happened and what he had missed during his captivity, or rather, they began to. It would take years for him to learn everything that had happened since he’d ended up in Arcadia, if it was even possible. He had been gone for 70 years. The world had changed so much he could barely recognize it, and he couldn't help wondering if he would ever be able to fit in.

It wasn't only the world that had changed, of course. Steve had changed as well. He might look like a human, but he wasn't one anymore, not exactly. A changeling, that was how Fury told him people like Steve were referred to. Like the changeling children of old fairy tales. It was a fitting description; Steve did feel like he was someone who resembled Steve Rogers, but was deeply, fundamentally different, a strange being born of Faerie. Of course, he also looked very different from that slight man he’d used to be, and even in the normal world, he had all the superhuman strength and agility he had gained during his captivity.

Prince Fury took Steve by surprise by being an extremely hospitable host. Steve was offered food, clothes, and even living quarters in the Covenant’s lair. Steve suspected the Prince was doing it to serve his own purposes—his understanding of vampires was that they never did anything for altruistic reasons—but where else would he go? He had nothing and no one. Most of the people he had known _before_ must be dead by now.

Tomorrow, Fury had said, they would talk more about what the future might hold for Steve, but he'd had a long, life-altering day, and he should rest and give his thoughts some time to settle.

The first night was difficult.

For a long time, he lay staring at the stone ceiling in his soft, wide bed, more luxurious than anything he had ever slept in. His mind was buzzing. It was impossible to grasp that just this morning, he had woken up in his cell, expecting a day like any other, and that the fight with the ice elemental couldn't have been more than eight hours ago.

Several times, his thoughts strayed back to the figure in golden armor. Their gazes had met when they'd fallen out of the portal, and the emptiness and loss in the dark eyes looking through the helmet's eyeholes had been so strong, it had almost felt like a physical blow. Steve couldn't help but wonder who that person was, and what could've left such wounds in their soul.

It had felt a little like looking into a mirror.

Eventually, Steve's eyes drifted shut, and he was instantly back in Arcadia.

“Did you really think you could just run away?” his Master sneered at him.

He was sat on his bunk, staring up at the Red Fae, who towered over him in all his demonic horror. It didn't feel like a dream. Everything was perfectly tangible, far more real than that unlikely escape and the picture-perfect welcome he’d received from the Covenant of the Shield.

Steve wasn’t bound; there was nothing to hold him in his place, and yet he couldn't move, the knowledge of how easily his Master could stop him, of how futile resisting would be, more than enough to keep him in his place.

He wasn't going to submit without a fight. Not anymore. He was a free man now. Ignoring the overwhelming urge to remain quiet and bow his head, he gritted, “I’m not your slave.”

His Master laughed, with something almost akin to pity on his face. “Do you really believe that? You think you can ever leave Arcadia behind, Steve Rogers? You belong here. There is no place for you in the realm of humans. You can run for the rest of your life, but you will never escape your true nature.”

He willed himself to wake up, but it didn't work, the image of the Red Fae as real and clear as anything in front of his face. He tried to stand up, to walk away, but that was just as useless.

With a single pointed glance his Master set him on fire, the flames burning him from within in pure, all-encompassing agony.

He struggled not to scream.

He failed that, too.

**********

Surprisingly enough, being a reanimated mess of spare body parts did have a few perks. For example, Tony had always seen sleep as a nuisance that robbed him of perfectly good working hours, and now he needed much less of it. A couple of hours every few days was plenty, and he could go on without sleeping at all for over a week if need be, though he would start feeling as dead as he was, not to mention that he _did_ need to sleep to replenish his magical energy, or he wouldn't be able to do much.

He didn't like sleeping. There were always dreams, chaotic nightmares of his captivity and his past life. Worst of all, there were dreams that were not his. After a while, he'd come to realize, with dismay, that they were from those people who were now a part of him. Soldiers serving their country, young men with families and hopes and dreams, who had died because of him.

Pepper always berated him for not sleeping. Of course, she didn't know he wasn't fully human anymore. At most, she might have guessed that he had nightmares about torture, which wasn't the half of it. She worried that he was driving himself too hard. She had no idea that most of the time, sleeping only left him feeling worse.

Sometimes, to keep up appearances, he gave in to her persistent demands and retreated to his room, where he could pretend to be sleeping while in fact working on a laptop or a tablet. Tonight, though, he knew he'd have to actually catch the few hours of shuteye that he required to recharge his magic, because the trip to retrieve Rogers had left him particularly drained. Not that it was surprising. Dimensional travel and fighting the Fae, all within the space of a few hours, amounted to one of the most intense days of magic use he'd faced.

Rogers. Tony tried his best not to think of the man, but it was nearly impossible. How could one glance make him feel like his world had been turned upside down?

He'd never believed in love at first sight, not even when he'd been a living man. These days, he wasn't even capable of love; he knew that all too well. And still, something in the way Rogers had looked at him, as if he understood, had made Tony wonder if things could change; if, perhaps, there was some truth to those stories of monsters like Tony being able to become human again, truly and fully alive.

It was foolish to hang onto such thoughts, he told himself. Rogers didn't even know who Tony was—he'd been in full armor, after all. He didn't really want Rogers to know, either. The fewer people knew, the better. Anyway, Rogers was part Fae, after so many years in Arcadia, and could have abilities that could cause all kinds of effects on people. Tony wasn't immune to such things, as his fight with the Red Fairy had proven. Maybe whatever Tony had thought he'd felt had only been Rogers's magical aura playing tricks with his mind.

It most likely didn't mean a thing, but he still wanted to meet Rogers again, to talk to him, and to get to know him. And really, why shouldn't he? He had nothing to lose. After all, it wasn't as if he could have his heart broken. That was something he was definitely, entirely immune to.

When he finally stopped resisting and allowed himself to fall asleep, he did not dream of death and destruction, but of the tall trees he'd seen in Arcadia, with Rogers sitting under one, doodling something on a piece of parchment. As he noticed Tony approaching, he raised his eyes, and cast another of those impossible glances in Tony's direction, and for a passing moment, Tony felt—alive.

**********

Steve came to curled up in bed, shaking all over, expecting his skin to be burned to a crisp. It took him a moment to realize that he was actually fine, and the mattress was too soft and the room too big for it to be his cell. Then, he remembered how he'd been rescued by the Covenant.

Being back in Arcadia had been a dream. It must've only been a nightmare. As real as it had felt, he couldn't have actually left the room.

He didn't feel rested, but there was no way he was going to go back to sleep.

There was no clock in the room, and he had no idea what time it was. Come to think of it, he hadn't had any clue of the time of the day since the rescue. It had been dusk in Arcadia, but he didn't know if that meant anything for the real world. The compound he was in was run by vampires, so obviously there were no windows.

He got dressed in the cargo pants and unfamiliarly tight and stretchy t-shirt he'd been given earlier, and ventured out of his room, hoping to come across someone he knew, or just anything to distract him. He wondered if it had been these same corridors he'd walked through on the way to that ritual that had stranded him in Arcadia. His memories of back then were so few and fragmented that he couldn't tell. He knew it had been the same Covenant, so it was possible. The overall appearance of the place was neutral, with featureless concrete walls and simple, unmarked doors, more like a military base than how Steve would have pictured a traditional vampire lair. The Covenant had been collaborating with the military, back in the day—that was how he had gotten involved—so perhaps that was why.

The only thing he could properly remember from his last visit to the Covenant's den was a general feeling of trepidation. He'd been anxious about what was coming, and also about being surrounded by vampires. Maybe he should be worried now, as well, about all the fanged predators so close, but he wasn't. They were nothing compared to the overwhelming power and magic of his Master.

He'd barely gotten twenty steps away from his door when he spotted Natasha, the red-haired lady from the rescue party, walking purposefully along the corridor towards him. Fury must've had her keeping an eye on him.

"Evening, Steve," she greeted him, casual, as if they had known one another for ages.

"Hello," Steve said. "What time is it? I don't seem to have a clock."

"Ah. I'll see to it that you get one, among all the other things you'll need. It's around sunset," Natasha said. "Would you like some breakfast?"

"Uh, sure," Steve said, though he wasn't hungry at all.

Natasha accompanied Steve to the small kitchen where he'd eaten on the previous day—clearly something set up with non-vampire visitors in mind, looking like it was hardly ever used. Steve was grateful for it being there. Natasha apologized for them only having instant coffee and cereal, but even those, to Steve, were luxuries beyond what he'd ever imagined. He hadn't even remembered the taste of coffee.

It was mildly unnerving to have breakfast with Natasha sitting across from him. She chatted pleasantly enough when Steve asked something, but when they didn't speak, she seemed unnaturally still. The way she looked, Steve thought that she probably never moved a single muscle without meaning to. Her every gesture was graceful and calculated. Had she always been like this, or was it because she was a vampire? She had seemed to stand out even among the other vampires Steve had seen here.

Once Steve had finished his meal, Natasha took her to see Prince Fury again. The Prince's office was, like the rest of the complex, not what Steve would've expected from the ruler of a vampire Covenant. Instead of leather and red velvet curtains and the like, it reminded him of some space adventure pulp, the walls lined with glowing screens showing films and numbers.

"Evening. Take a seat," Fury said, looking up from yet another screen that was embedded in his desk, pointing a hand at the chair opposite from him. "You sleep all right?"

Steve sat down and replied, "Fine," purely out of habit, though nothing could've been further from the truth.

Fury raised his one visible eyebrow. "You know, I don't need any kind of magic to recognize a lie that blatant. You didn't sleep very much. When you did, you had nightmares."

Steve shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Was he that easy to read, or was Fury just really good at guessing? "Well, yes," he admitted. "How'd you know?"

"You're not the first one of your kind I've met," Fury said. "That's how it goes. For some, it gets easier with time. Others, not so much, but I don't think you'll be like them."

It was difficult to imagine it getting much worse. Surely that would drive one crazy. Maybe that was what Fury was implying, about the others.

"Um, can I ask you something?" Steve had to venture.

"Go ahead," Fury said looking mildly curious.

"They couldn't actually get here if they wanted to, could they? The…" His lips refused to make the word "Fae", and he very nearly said "the Keepers" instead. "My captors," he finished.

"Absolutely not," Fury said, with utmost conviction. "This place is protected with every possible spell known to Kindred and man. Those slippery bastards won't get within a mile of our walls without me knowing about it."

Steve breathed in relief, the tension left by the all too real dreams beginning to loosen slightly. "All right. Great."

The relief turned out to be very short-lived as Fury went on: "You do need to keep in mind, though, that once you leave this place, you won't be as safe. They will be out there, and they could be looking for you."

Steve crossed his arms, trying to hold himself together. "So I'm going to be a fugitive for the rest of my life?"

"That's a little dramatic," Fury said, with half a smirk. "Not a fugitive. You'll just need to keep a low profile, which is something all of us have to do anyway, out there in the world. Especially when using one's talents."

There was a calculating look at the last words, and Steve could guess where that was going. "My talents, which you're hoping I'll use to serve your purposes?"

Fury nodded. "Very good. Knew you were as sharp as you're courageous. Yes, I've got a job for you, if you're willing to take it."

"And in return, you'll protect me?" Steve asked.

"To a certain extent," Fury said. "And help you with your return to the regular world. Offer you a place to stay—doesn't have to be here, we own plenty of nice apartments around the city you could choose from—and a generous salary."

"From where I've sitting, I don't exactly have a lot of choice," Steve said. He didn't feel at all comfortable with the thought of working for vampires, but for now, he had no one else. He knew no one and he barely understood how the world worked these days. Just looking at the room around him made that all too obvious. "But I'm not going to kill anyone."

"You won't have to. Trust me, I've never yet had any trouble hiring assassins. More like the opposite. You get to know all the players in these games, and you'll notice that my Covenant, we're the good guys," Fury declared, sounding quite proud.

"Will I be able to quit whenever I want to?" Steve asked.

"You have my word," Fury said, and offered his hand. "And this isn't some Fae contract."

Not a Fae contract, but a deal with a certain type of devil, anyway, Steve thought, as he shook the proffered hand. "Count me in, then."

"Good! I've got a first task for you right away," Fury said, and was that a faintly amused tone Steve caught? "Keeping a low profile tends to be easier if you don't share your identity. You can easily pass for a human. Stick to that. I'm going to offer you a costume to wear when you're out on missions. It's got some useful spells worked into the materials, too, so you won't shine like a beacon to any Fae that might be nearby."

"Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like this?" Steve asked.

"I took the liberty to have the costume delivered to your room. Go and see if it fits," Fury finished, ignoring Steve's question.

**********

Tony dropped the costume, infused with the protective magic that Fury had asked for, in Rogers's empty, unlocked room, and headed towards Fury's office. He nearly ran into Rogers as he rounded a corner.

"Sorry, I was lost in thought," Rogers said, and looked at Tony, his brow furrowing. "Do I know you?"

That gave Tony pause. Would Rogers recognize him? After only seeing him once, in full armor? Surely he wouldn't? Back at the portal, Tony had been actively using his powers, which would've blown his human guise wide open, while now, it'd take unusually sharp senses to tell him apart from an ordinary person. Would changelings have such senses? Tony wasn't overly familiar with them, had only met a handful before Rogers, and never talked with any at length.

Well, he sure as hell wasn't going to admit anything, if Steve didn't call him out on it.

Tony offered Rogers a winning smile and his hand. "I know we haven't met," he said. "Tony Stark. You might remember my dad?"

"Oh!" Rogers's face lit up, and he shook Tony's hand enthusiastically. "Of course! You're Howard Stark's son?"

"The one and only," Tony said. Disaster averted, hopefully.

"Steve Rogers," Rogers introduced himself. "I can't say I'd remember much about Howard. I don't remember a lot about—wait, you already know who I am?"

Tony had already given that away, but it had been on purpose. He _was_ here, officially, to deliver Rogers's costume. Of course he was supposed to know about Rogers. "I've heard the whole story, yeah. Fury has kept me updated, because funnily enough, I seem to be following in Dad's footsteps and doing the odd job for the Covenant. I assure you, I didn't design the neckline," Tony said.

"The what?" Rogers asked, confused.

"You'll see when you get back to your room," Tony said. Rogers would be a sight in that getup, no doubt about it.

Rogers was eyeing Tony with a slight frown again. "You're not a vampire, are you?"

"What gave me away? Lack of fangs? Less than perfect skin?" Tony joked, wondering if Rogers might've somehow picked up on the fact that Tony wasn't exactly a regular person either.

"For one, you don't wear the uniform, and yeah, there's something different about you," Rogers said, but didn't elaborate on it. Instead, he asked, "If you do the odd job for them, what's that, then?"

"Eh, small things," Tony said with a shrug. "I'm good with tech and dabble in magic, they have use for both. You might run into me every now and then if you stick with the Covenant."

"I might be doing that," Rogers said. "Fury has offered me a job."

"Of course he has," Tony said, some disdain creeping into his tone. He'd known Fury wouldn't just free Rogers from Fairyland out of charity.

"You think I shouldn't accept?" Rogers asked.

"Nah, for what it's worth, I think staying is a smart choice," Tony said. "But don't get too close with them. I'm not a huge fan of everything the Covenant is doing. They are vampires, after all."

"Oh, right, they are! I'll try to remember that," Rogers quipped.

"And if you ever feel like you could use company that's a little less bloodthirsty, but still in on the supernatural stuff, give me a call. I wouldn't mind showing you the miracles of the modern world," Tony said, and handed Rogers his card. He hadn't been planning on this, but in the moment, it felt like a good idea.

Afterwards, he wondered what he was expecting to gain. Rogers would, at best, be a distraction from everything Tony should actually be doing, and at worst, a disappointment, when that spark of hope he'd somehow kindled turned out to be false. But it was out of his hands, now.

Maybe Rogers would never call him, and that would be the end of it.

**********

The costume was utterly ridiculous. Steve could certainly see what Tony had meant with the neckline: it dipped almost all the way to his waist, making for an odd contrast to the mask that covered most of his face. The black fabric was tough but stretchy, and fit him very snugly. Was this what everyone wore nowadays? He'd seen many of the vampires wearing somewhat similar things in the complex, but he hadn't stepped outside of it yet. Tony's clothing had certainly been nothing like this.

He'd wear the thing for now, when performing whatever tasks Fury had in mind for him, he decided. He could reconsider once he had a better handle on life in the 21st century.

He thought he might take up on Tony's offer and ask him to show him around the city. That actually sounded very nice—it'd be good to have a friend who wasn't a vampire. He couldn't quite shake the nagging feeling that Tony felt familiar, as if they'd already met. It must be because he reminded Steve of Howard, on a subconscious level. Steve's actual memories of Howard were so faded, he couldn't really even bring up the man's face, or recall a single conversation they'd had.

Just as he was about to start peeling the costume off, there was a knock at the door.

"Yes?" Steve called out.

"It's Natasha," came the reply in the already familiar voice. "I hope that costume fits, because the Prince needs us for a briefing. We have a mission."

Steve opened the door. Natasha was wearing the same form-fitting black leather catsuit she had had earlier, but now with pistol holsters at her thighs. The cut definitely wasn't too different from the thing they'd given to Steve, complete with a deep neckline, even if hers wasn't quite as pronounced as his.

"Is wearing this kind of thing normal these days?" Steve blurted out.

Natasha gave him a charming smile and a quirked eyebrow. "I wouldn't walk the streets wearing this if I wanted to be undercover, for sure. It's not what regular people wear, but what we wear on Covenant business. Recognizable to those who know us, and anonymous enough to the common people who don't."

"I'm not feeling very anonymous in this," Steve said, pulling at the mask to make it sit more comfortably over his face.

"I can promise no one is going to recognize you dressed like that, if your everyday wear is something less flashy," Natasha said. "Not even the Fae, thanks to the magic in the fabric. Now, all you need is a name for this secret identity. Any ideas?"

"Not really," Steve said.

Steve hadn't thought about that. A new name, for his Covenant-serving changeling self. What would he call himself, when he didn't know the world around him, let alone his place in it? Was there even one for him, or would he be forever stuck searching for it, never quite fitting in?

"Well, you've got about two minutes to come up with one," Natasha said.

She led the way through the corridors to a plain meeting room, with a long table and a screen in the wall at the end of it. Already in the room were Fury, Clint—another vampire from the previous day's rescue party—and two men Steve hadn't met before. One was dressed in a suit and had an aura of official efficiency about him. The other, in contrast, wore a rumpled purple dress shirt, had an unruly head of dark hair, and sat slouched in a corner as if he'd rather be anywhere else.

"Fits like a glove," Fury noted, eyeing Steve's costume with a mildly amused look. "Everyone, say hello to—what're we calling you, again?"

"Nomad," Steve said, the first thing that came to mind. He felt like maybe it was a little too obvious a name for someone without a place to call home, but no one even blinked an eye at it.

The bedraggled man waved at him, Clint made a salute, and the official-looking man simply nodded.

"We have Bruce Banner, in the corner—a mage of quite unusual talents," Fury motioned at the man in the rumpled shirt, "and Coulson, my right hand man and my eyes and ears when I'm not around," he pointed at the man in a suit. "Hawkeye and the Black Widow you've already met," he added, looking from Clint to Natasha. "Take a seat, Nomad. We're still waiting for someone."

Steve went for the closest empty seat, which happened to be across from the man introduced as Coulson. He instantly stood up and offered Steve his hand. "Phil Coulson. Pleasure to meet you."

"Hello," Steve said, slightly confused about whether or not he should give his full name to these people. He assumed everyone in the room already knew who he was anyway.

"I've taken the liberty of collecting some of the most important details to help you orient to your current circumstances," Coulson went on, and reached towards the floor to pull up a thick binder bursting with paper. "For later. If there's anything specific you'd like more information on, just ask, anytime. Night or day." Together with the slightest shift in his expression, those words were clearly meant to imply that he wasn't a vampire.

Steve had already guessed Coulson wasn't a vampire. He wasn't entirely sure if he was just picking up on slight clues, like the man's skin being less pale and his hand warmer than a vampire's would've been, or if he could somehow sense things beyond the physical. He thought the vampires felt different from everyone else in the room, as if the ambient temperature around them was lower and somehow the very air stood still. As for the other unfamiliar person in the room, Bruce, who'd been introduced as a mage, Steve thought there was something odd about him as well. Like a raincloud hanging over his head, some kind of a sense of foreboding that was difficult to describe.

Steve wished he had someone to talk to about these things—someone who was more familiar with supernatural beings, since what Steve had to go on were a half-forgotten memory of a briefing he had received seventy years ago, and a number of rumors he had heard in Arcadia. Maybe he should try and talk to Coulson, when he had the time.

Steve was just about to begin leafing through the binder when the door opened again, and a figure dressed from head to toe in golden armor stepped into the room.

"Sorry I'm late, the traffic was a pain," the newcomer said, the casual words at odds with both his appearance and voice, which sounded almost robotic with its metallic echo. Still, Steve was convinced this man, whoever he was, wasn't a robot: he remembered the wave of loss he'd felt when their eyes had met. Now, the man wasn't looking at Steve, and Steve realized he might not even recognize Steve in this ridiculous costume.

"Glad to see you decided to grace us with your presence," Fury said sardonically.

"Of course I did. You always have the best parties, Nick. So, who are the new recruits?" the armored man asked.

"The one in the corner is Banner, and the masked man here is Nomad," Fury said.

The armored man simply nodded in Steve's direction, and Steve returned the gesture, wondering if he'd been recognized. The last time they'd met, Steve had been disheveled after the fights in the pits, and wearing nothing but a simple pair of trousers. Then again, Steve's mask didn't cover his hair, and it wouldn't be rocket science to match the broad-shouldered, blond man they'd recently rescued from Arcadia to the similarly featured man joining Fury's troops just a day later.

Whether he recognized Steve or not, the armored man seemed more interested in the other person Fury had named. "Bruce Banner?" he said, sounding impressed. "I can't wait to see your party trick."

"Do I know you?" Banner returned grouchily.

"Nah, but I know of you, and it's a pleasure," the armored man returned, and made a bow. "The Golden Avenger, at your service."

"A bit pretentious, right?" Clint muttered to Steve's left. "Do like the rest of us and just call him Goldie."

"You're the one who keeps calling me that, Birdie," the Avenger said. He didn't sit down, either, but picked a corner of the room to stand in, his arms crossed. "So, Fury, where's the fire?"


	3. Three-Alarm Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised updates roughly every two weeks, and I'll try to stick to it, so it's now time for Chapter 3. Also, happy Valentine's Day, everyone! <3 Unfortunately, this chapter isn't particularly romantic... 
> 
> As for the previous chapter, thanks for beta reading go to [antigrav_vector](http://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector) and [Lets_call_me_Lily](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lets_call_me_Lily/pseuds/Lets_call_me_Lily).

"Straight to business, eh, Avenger?" Fury said. "Fine for me. You're here because we've received intel that at midnight today—so, in about three hours—a cult dabbling in Norse mythology will attempt to summon a god known as Loki."

Fury tapped on the tablet he had in front of him, and an image that seemed like a medieval drawing appeared on the screen at the end of the table. It depicted a mischievous-looking bearded figure with a pointed hat, calling to mind some court jester. If Tony had only been going based on the picture, he wouldn't have been too worried, but he had actually heard of Loki before.

"The god of mischief," Tony noted aloud. "Rumored to be a trickster who can give the Fae a run for their money."

"Well done, gold star for you, Avenger," Fury said, looking unimpressed. "Yes, that Loki. Not the type of character we'd like to have running around on our plane of existence. We've got enough on our plate, just with the other clans, the Fae, wolves, and all kinds of out-of-control mages. Present company excluded."

"No offense taken," Banner said from his corner in a tired voice.

"So, we're your task force?" Rogers asked.

Tony was doing his best not to stare at "Nomad", despite the costume that practically cried out for attention. Had he still been a living man with all the fun features intact, he'd have been seriously turned on by that ridiculous neckline. Rogers's musculature was a work of art, and Tony could still go to an art gallery and appreciate well executed pieces, even if they didn't give him chills or make him smile. He could certainly recognize aesthetic perfection when it sat right in front of him. But he couldn't stare, because he didn't want Rogers to recognize him, and avoiding eye contact would help.

"Uhuh," Fury said to Rogers. "I need you to go and stop the ritual before they're through with it, and keep the collateral damage minimal. Most of these cultists aren't supernaturals. A couple of mages are involved. Selvig is one of them."

"Wait, the same Selvig who was just helping us with the portal to Arcadia? The Selvig who works for the Covenant?" Clint said incredulously.

"The man likes to experiment and has Norwegian roots," Fury pointed out. "I'm not surprised he's gotten involved in this ritual, to be honest. He could still be useful, so I'd rather you brought him back alive. And try not to harm the commoners too much. We need to deal with this discreetly, and without advertising too much that it's us. I really don't want a repeat of the Xolotl incident."

Tony heard Natasha make a displeased hum, and Clint looked at the floor. Tony hadn't taken part in that particular raid, but he'd heard it had been a massacre. Apparently, the Prince was making an effort to keep things less violent. More bloodshed meant more potential for trouble with the authorities, who they tried to avoid dealing with if at all possible, so discreet and less messy was definitely the smart way to go.

"The location is a warehouse in Bayonne, roughly half an hour's drive, so you've got some time to talk strategy and get yourselves ready. Coulson will be around for your questions. Try not to murder one another before the mission," Fury finished, deadpan, and headed out of the room.

"All right. This is going to be tricky since we have no experience of working as a team," Natasha began, instantly taking the reins. "Nomad, I understand your talents are mostly in close combat?"

"That's right," Rogers replied.

"Mine too. Clint prefers a bow," Natasha said. "The three of us will be primarily responsible for keeping the hostiles in check. Banner, Avenger, the two of you understand magic better than the rest of us. You'll need to see that the ritual is dealt with. Think you can do that?"

Tony rolled his eyes, knowing that Natasha was observant enough to catch that even with the armor. "Can I deal with a ritual that some Viking fan club put together? I'd be surprised if said ritual even works in the first place."

"Clearly that was aimed at me more than you," Banner said. Which was probably true.

Banner was far more experienced in learned lore than Tony was, since Tony had only found out about the existence of anything magical after his reanimation, and his magic was a mixture of what he'd studied since then and his particular powers. Banner had some special powers of his own, too, but they were almost as unfortunate as Tony's. A somewhat experimental spell Banner had been working on had blown up in his face, and left him with a shapeshifting problem that made a werewolf's life seem easy. Tony was actually quite surprised that Fury had managed to bring him in; he'd had the impression that Banner lived in a hut in the middle of nowhere these days and never interacted with anyone if he could avoid it. Fury had to be seriously concerned of Loki to go through the trouble of recruiting Banner specifically for this mission.

"And yes, I can deal with it, too," Banner finished. "I promise I'm not going to lose my temper and tear them to pieces."

**********

At eleven, they got into cars in the underground parking lot that was a part of the Covenant's complex. With Coulson, the Avenger and Banner in the first one, Steve was left to ride with Natasha and Clint. Both cars came with drivers who were dressed in suits and wore sunglasses even though it was nighttime.

Steve was excited to get out of the building, finally, and to see his first glimpse of the outside world and how it had changed. He'd have preferred to do it on his own terms and not as part of some vampire assault force, but he had to admit that stopping an ancient god of mischief didn't sound like a bad thing to do.

They drove up a steep ramp that seemed to go on for a bit, telling of how deep underground they must've been, and popped out into a street lined with countless bright neon signs, full of color and light in spite of the late hour. There was plenty of traffic as well. Steve regretted that it wasn't daylight, because as it was, he couldn't really get a very good impression of the surroundings, and he couldn't even guess what part of town they might be in. 

"Manhattan," Natasha replied from the front seat, when Steve asked her about it. "And in case you're wondering, yes, we do have passages that connect to the subway, so if for some reason we have to do things during daytime, we have ways of getting around."

"Sounds smart," Steve said. "So, do you get lots of missions like this?"

"Not like this," Clint said. "Not with so many outsiders joining us. If you asked me, I'd say the Prince is preparing for something big. The Avenger has been around a few times, but Banner has never set foot in our base before."

"The Avenger," Steve said, realizing that he now had the perfect opportunity to ask about the intriguing figure. "Do you know anything about him? If he's some kind of a mage, is he a human? Why the armor and the cover identity, if Banner doesn't need one?"

Natasha chuckled dryly. "You do realize that even if we knew him, we wouldn't tell you, just as we won't tell anyone your real name when you're in costume? These secret identities aren't just for show. You know why you need yours, and he has his own reasons that are just as weighty. You want to know more about the Golden Avenger, you need to ask him."

Steve felt a little foolish. Of course Natasha would say that. The way she said it, though, seemed to imply that she did know more about him, which would mean that maybe the Avenger wasn't all that secretive about it.

"I'm just going to say, you can make your own conclusions when you see him in action," Clint added. "Keep in mind that for most mages, their magic is a little like science, based on studying and formulas and rituals. Less instinctive than, say, our abilities are."

"Okay," Steve said. He'd been vaguely aware of that before, and wondered why Clint felt the need to point it out. "Can you tell me about Banner, then? He doesn't seem to have a secret identity at all," Steve tried. What with the mysterious comments Banner had exchanged with both the Avenger and Natasha, Steve was also curious about him.

"I keep forgetting you're really not up to date in anything," Clint said. "Banner has a bit of a reputation. He's a mage, but he also managed to turn himself into a shifter, and he can't really control the change. Piss him off too much, and you'll have to wrestle with a grizzly. I guess you might be able to handle that, but I'd still not test it out if I were you."

"A grizzly? As in, a bear?" Steve had to check he'd gotten that right.

"The biggest, meanest, most dangerous bear anyone's ever seen," Clint said. "Of course, I'm just repeating what I've heard. I haven't actually seen him shift. People could be exaggerating."

Steve thought back to all the fights he'd had in Arcadia. Most of his memories were fragmentary, but he could recall that some fights had ended with his skin torn to shreds and covered in blood, with injuries that would surely have killed a man in the ordinary world. He'd fought so many creatures so far beyond what one could even imagine that a grizzly didn't sound particularly worrisome.

Come to think of it, Steve couldn't come up with many things that would worry him. He had fought for his life every day for decades. What were a few more fights? Even if he wouldn't have his Master's healers to help him—which meant that he had no idea how fast he'd heal—he couldn't bring himself to be concerned, except for those he'd be fighting. He'd never fought a regular human with his current strength and speed. He'd have to be careful not to hurt them too badly.

**********

The location was one that would've been cliched for any kind of illegal activity: a warehouse that had seen better days in a quiet corner of the harbor. Had Tony been an ancient Norse god, he would've been insulted by the choice. Then again, "cult dabbling in Norse mythology" made him think of some bearded biker gang, and considering that, the place seemed about right. Tony had no clue what Loki himself would look like—he couldn't claim to have a whole lot of experience dealing with gods of any pantheon. For all Tony knew, Loki might end up looking like a biker, too. The only thing that would really take him by surprise would be the jester-like figure from the drawing Fury had shown them.

They'd parked the cars several buildings away, so as not to draw any attention to themselves, and left Coulson and the drivers waiting as they snuck along the dark quayside towards their target. Natasha and Clint merged with the shadows so perfectly that Tony had trouble following them, and Rogers's steps were almost as soft. Even Banner seemed significantly more stealthy than Tony. What kind of idiot chose to wear a golden suit of armor on a mission that was supposed to be low profile and relied on surprise? Fury had known how Tony operated before asking him to join in, though, so this was more on Fury than him.

At the corner of the warehouse, they stopped, and Natasha and Clint did a quick recon trip around the building, with the three others waiting hidden by the building next door.

"There's just the one door," Natasha said in a whisper. "It doesn't seem to be guarded on the outside. Can't tell if there are magical safeguards. They might just be trusting that no one knows what they're doing. This isn't a well organized group anyway."

"Seems almost unfair to barge in on them like this," Clint noted. "Poor things won't know what hit 'em."

"Remember, minimal collateral damage," Natasha said, casting him a sharp look.

"Aw, Widow, you're no fun at all," Clint returned with a grin that revealed his fangs.

"All right. It's quarter to midnight. I expect they're all here by now. Better move in before they get too far with the ritual," Natasha said. "I'll take point. Nomad, with me. Banner and Avenger behind us, Hawkeye at the back. Follow me."

Natasha led the group to the unremarkable door in the side of the building, kicked it open and barged in—into a big, perfectly quiet and entirely empty hall.

"The Hell?" Clint complained behind Tony. "Was Fury's intel wrong?"

"Too early to say. Spread out and look for hidden entrances, hatches, anything," Natasha said.

Looking at the space they were in, Tony estimated it to be about the size of the building he'd seen, so if there were any other rooms, they couldn't be very big. Underground seemed the more likely option.

As Clint and Nat started going around the hall's walls, Tony turned his attention to the floor. Rogers and Banner seemed to have had the same idea. To the naked eye, the floor seemed like featureless concrete.

"Widow," Tony called out to Natasha. "How badly do we want to stay unnoticed? Magic okay? It could set off their safeguards."

"We don't have a lot of time left. Do it," she said.

Tony crouched to place on palm against the concrete, and sent a low-level wave of his magical energy through the floor, like a bat using echolocation. It pinged back instantly from where an intricate illusion was covering up a stairway in the floor. They could've walked over it and never noticed it was there. Now that he saw it, though, Tony could easily dispel it.

"All right, I may have to take back some of my doubts about their skills, that was impressive," Tony noted as they regrouped to their previous formation, with Natasha and Rogers leading the way down the stairs.

The ten steps down brought them to a room quarter the size of the hall above, and full of people. On a quick first glance, there had to be at least fifty Loki groupies, and their looks varied from jeans and t-shirts and the leather jackets Tony had expected to a couple of people wearing what looked very much like Viking armor.

They met the first resistance halfway down the stairs, but Natasha and Rogers bowled straight through them, barely even slowing down.

The scene was pure chaos from the moment Tony's boots hit the floor of the basement room. Two of the cultists shifted to wolf form, and there were another few creatures that Tony would bet had to be changelings, though he couldn't figure out why they'd be here. The cultists were organizing in a protective formation around the middle of the room. That would be the ritual circle, then, and that was where Tony needed to go. He could tell the ritual had already started: the magic hung heavy on the air like a static charge, making his skin prickle despite the armor.

The number of people in the limited space made sticking to Fury's request of avoiding collateral damage a serious challenge. Tony's usual fighting style relied on concussive blasts and the occasional searing bolt of lighting, neither of which were exactly precision strikes. He tried his best to tone down the amount of force he used as he made a path through the crowd for himself and Banner, leaving the rest of the cultists for Rogers and the vampires.

He glanced at Banner, wondering how long the man could hold back transforming. Banner seemed to have his eyes fixed on the ritual site ahead, his expression of deep focus. So far so good. He seemed to have it under control. He flinched when one of the wolves snapped its teeth at him, but Tony blasted it aside, and Banner stayed in human form.

A few of the enemies had drawn guns, so there were bullets whizzing in the air as well as the occasional curse. These guys were serious. Luckily Tony's brand of offensive magic was very rare, so there were no blasts similar to his to dodge.

They managed to push close enough that Tony could see the ritual circle over the shoulders of the five figures surrounding it. It looked like what Tony would've expected, based on his very superficial knowledge of this brand of magic: there were flaming runes, and what very much seemed like a dead goat in the middle.

He was considering the best approach to shut it down when the lights in the room flickered, went off for a few seconds, and turned on again. A glacial wind blew through the room.

"Close it!" Natasha was shouting through the radio earpiece. "Stop it! Avenger! Banner!"

"We can't just pull the plug and it's off, it's a bit more complicated than that," Tony yelled back.

"Start with the _raidho_ -rune," Banner said next to him. "Go for it now, I can take it from there."

**********

Despite the chaotic start, it was finally starting to feel to Steve like they were more or less in control of the situation. The skirmish was trickier than what he was used to: instead of one or two opponents that he could strike with everything he had when he found an opening, there were enemies all around, and he had to try and pull his punches. He'd disarmed the ones with handguns and knocked out a changeling with horns on her head.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Banner and the Avenger moving in on the ritual circle. Even though Steve had little experience on such things, he could tell that the blinking lights and sudden drop in ambient temperature weren't good signs. The ritual must be nearing completion. The voices that had been chanting earlier had now fallen quiet.

The cultists kept coming, and for several minutes, Steve had his hands full trying to hold back a werewolf. Its strength was evenly matched with his, and its sharp claws left a few long but superficial scratches on the exposed skin of his chest. He had seen Natasha take a few blows as well, but she'd shaken them off as though they hadn't happened at all.

The next time he caught a glimpse of the circle, where some of the flames that had been there had now been extinguished, he also saw something hit the Avenger. It wasn't a physical blow, but a spell cast by one of the mages around the ritual, and it looked like a wave of dark mist that reached out and enveloped the golden armor for a blink before fading out.

Despite not knowing the first thing about the man in the armor, Steve felt a pang of concern for him. Whatever that was, it didn't look good.

"Avenger! What was that?" Natasha's voice rang in Steve's ear.

"Not sure, but I'm okay. I can still fight," the Avenger replied, and even though his voice was as metallic as ever, it sounded a little shaky to Steve.

"Good. Don't let the mages escape," Natasha ordered.

Now that she'd mentioned it, the crowd around them seemed thinner, and Steve realized some of the cultists must've decided to make a run for it. But was it because their ritual had been stopped, or because they'd finished it successfully?

He knocked back a tall woman swinging a club at him, and made his way towards the ritual circle. He got there just in time to catch a man dressed in a robe embroidered with runes trying to make a run for it, and tackled him to the floor, pinning him in an armlock. There weren't many enemies left in the room anymore.

The remains of the ritual circle were now right in front of him: burned spots and blood on the concrete floor. Banner was kneeling so close to it that his nose almost touched the ground, pushing at a pile of soot with his forefinger and frowning. Behind him, the Avenger stood still as a statue, staring into the distance.

"Hey, Avenger, you all right?" Steve called out at him while pinning the wriggling cultist to the floor.

"Yes, yes," came the Avenger's irritated reply. He didn't so much as turn his head towards Steve, but asked, "Banner. We were too late, weren't we?"

Banner stood up, arms crossed, hanging his head. "Yeah. They did it. Loki's through."

"There was no physical manifestation," Natasha remarked, showing up to stand by the circle as well. Behind her, Clint was keeping watch over several securely tied cultists sitting on the ground, the only ones left in the room aside from the one Steve had caught.

"There wasn't," Banner agreed. "Seems likely that he either fled as non-corporeal or possessed someone."

Everyone's eyes turned to the Avenger.

"It's not me," the Avenger said defensively, spreading his arms. "I can see why you'd think that, but it's not. Banner, you can tell. It's simple enough."

"With your permission. Don't try to block me. Stand in the circle," Banner said.

The Avenger stepped into the circle. Banner crouched again, dipped his fingers in a bloodstain on the ground, and retraced a few runes on the ground. He then stood up and recited a few words in a language Steve didn't know.

They stood in expectant silence, staring at the two men, and nothing happened. Nothing at all.

"See?" the Avenger said. "Not me. "

"It's not him," Banner confirmed. "Would've shown up."

"Can I go now?" the Avenger asked as he stepped out of the circle. "Looks like we're done here."

"Fury's going to need our reports. Especially seeing as we failed," Natasha said, her tone nothing short of dangerous.

"I'll email him. Really need to be somewhere else right now. I think I left the stove on," the Avenger quipped, without a tinge of humor in his voice, and headed for the stairs.

"Hey!" Natasha shouted after him, but he just waved a hand at her and kept walking. She looked like she was about to run after him.

Banner started to reach a hand towards her but then seemed to think the better of it and pulled it back. "Let him go. He's not possessed, I can guarantee that."

"What in the Prince's name was that, then?" Natasha asked, not even trying to cover her annoyance.

"My vote is on the effects of whatever hit him," Banner said with a shrug. "Probably some kind of a curse. I expect he has ways of dealing with it. If not, surely he can call for help."

"Fine. I'll take your word for it. In the meantime, we need to deal with these lowlifes," Natasha waved a hand at the bound cultists.

"Speaking of the Loki lovers," Clint noted from where he stood, "has anyone seen Selvig?"

**********

The curse didn't actually feel like anything at all when it struck Tony, and for a passing moment he hoped it might've been something he was immune to, but when was he ever that lucky?

The figures gathered in the corners of the room and shuffled closer, coming into full view as the cultists fled. There were about a dozen of them, and at first, he didn't realize who these people were or where had they come from, and was confused why no one else was reacting to them. Then, he saw the wounds.

There was a young man missing his left arm, and another whose leg had been severed at the thigh, still slowly dripping blood, which evaporated into thin air before it hit the floor. A third person had a terrible gaping wound across his neck. Many of the others sported surgical scars, some local and precise, just enough to harvest one organ, while some had the full Y-shaped incision of an autopsy, all of the cuts oozing blood.

Tony hadn't seen their faces before. He had shared dreams with them; he'd seen through their eyes, because they were a part of him, but he'd never had to look them in the eye.

They were staring at him, accusing, some pointing fingers at him. They didn't speak, but the message couldn't have been clearer. _Murderer_ , they said. _This is all your fault. If not for you, we would still be alive._

While Tony couldn't feel love or happiness or joy, there was always regret and guilt and bitterness, and he had thought it couldn't get much worse. Now, he was entirely overwhelmed by them. Even if his metabolism was maintained by magic, his breath could still catch at his throat. It left him feeling like he was drowning. It was too much.

He struggled to feign he was fine while all he wanted to do was to run out of the room. Having to wait for Banner to conclude that he wasn't possessed by Loki almost made him scream. He needed to get away. He needed to be alone.

He wondered if they'd follow him. He was almost certain they would.

As soon as he saw a chance, he leaped at it and rushed out, up the stairs, into the cool night outside. He grabbed his phone, called Happy, and told him to drive as if someone's life depended on it.

The wait was far too long. The ghastly figures did indeed follow him, never quite stepping into his personal space, but never moving their eyes from him for one second, the eyes that were constantly speaking of his guilt.

_Why you? Why did you deserve to live while we all died? Why was your life so important that we had to sacrifice ours and have our bodies defiled to save yours?_

Some of them were so young. That kid with a deep gouge in his side couldn't be older than twenty. There were even a few women. Somehow Tony had always thought they'd all be men, as if some kind of compatibility were required in an alchemical procedure such as this. Of course it wasn't. Yinsen hadn't exactly done tissue type matching in that cave. He'd just used what he'd had. Who he'd had. The bodies mown down by Tony's weapons.

Tony wished he could make them understand. He had never wanted this. Of course, he hadn't wanted to die, but to live like this, not quite dead, but not alive, either, constantly gnawed by guilt—if Yinsen had asked him, if he'd been allowed to choose, surely he wouldn't have chosen this. Then again, he had chosen to kill people. He had designed those guns, those bombs, all the weapons that had killed them. It wasn't as if he hadn't known what the things he built were used for.

He didn't deserve to be alive. Any of the others would've deserved it more than him.

They followed him into the car when Happy arrived, four of them sitting in the back seat. Taking off his helmet only made their stares feel more tangible. The rest of them returned as soon as the car stopped and Tony stepped out of it at his mansion.

"You okay, boss? Need anything else? You look like you could use company," Happy offered.

"I'm fine," Tony said tersely. "Go home and sleep, Happy."

He waved away Jarvis, who also tried to offer his help. Jarvis was another reminder of Tony's failures—a not-quite-living thing of animated metal, even less human than Tony, born out of a twisted attempt to atone for the lives he'd taken by creating a new one.

He hurried to his workshop, got out of his armor, leaving the plates scattered on the floor, and slumped in the corner of the room. The bloodied figures stood in a semicircle around him, looking down at him.

_All your fault. You killed us. You killed all of us. How dare you walk around on our feet, wearing our skin?_

He closed his eyes, pressing the heels of his palms against them, and tried to focus, to ignore the overwhelming guilt for long enough to manage a few rational thoughts. He needed to sort this out. This might fade away given time, or it might not. If not, he'd have to find a way to break the curse. Curses always had a way out. He'd just have to find it. Until he did, he wouldn't be much good for anything.

He called Pepper, whose reply sounded part annoyed, part worried. "Tony? It's three in the morning. Why are you calling me?"

"Sorry, I forgot about the time. This is kind of urgent. I need to you to cancel everything for tomorrow. Might need longer than just tomorrow, not sure, but let's start with that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to [zessa](http://archiveofourown.org/users/zessa/pseuds/zessa), who commented on Chapter 1 ages ago with the idea that Tony gets hit by a spell that makes him see the people whose body parts he's using; that was such an evil angsty concept that I instantly wanted to write it!


	4. Four-Leaf Clover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How has it been two weeks already? Yikes, I'm not much closer to finishing the final three chapters, I'll have to hurry! Anyway, here's the next instalment.
> 
> Beta thanks, once again, to [antigrav_vector](http://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector) and [Lets_call_me_Lily](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lets_call_me_Lily/pseuds/Lets_call_me_Lily).

The debriefing back at the Covenant's base was a terse affair. Fury didn't shout or say anything overly harsh, but his disappointment and disapproval couldn't have been clearer in his expressions and clipped phrases. They didn't have much to say to defend themselves: yes, they had been outnumbered, but it'd only been down to a few minutes that they hadn't been able to stop the ritual.

When no one else mentioned the shadow that had hit the Golden Avenger, Steve brought that up, but none of the others seemed worried at all. If there was a problem, the Avenger would deal with it, they assured him.

The final outcome of the meeting was that there wasn't a whole lot they could do about their failure right away. Fury stated that he'd set his mages working on locating Loki, and once they had him, the team would have their chance to put right having let him loose in the first place. Until then, there was nothing in particular that Steve needed to do, which meant he could start getting settled into his new life.

With Coulson's help, Steve chose himself a place to stay. It was in Brooklyn, not far from where the Covenant's files said Steve had used to live before he'd been taken by the Fae. He didn't really remember that, couldn't remember what his old apartment had looked like or where he'd grown up, but walking the streets did occasionally give him a sense of déjà vu.

The apartment itself was very basic, according to Coulson. To Steve, it felt huge and impossibly luxurious. He had a big, fully equipped kitchen, and a bathroom with a bathtub, a big couch to lounge on in the living room, and a separate bedroom with a double bed. He couldn't figure out what to do with all the space—for the eternity he'd spent in Arcadia, he'd slept in a bunk that was so narrow he could barely fit in it.

The bed was something of a metaphor for his life, really. Without any further assignments from Fury, Steve had nothing at all to do. Nothing but free time. He didn't know what to do with all of it. 

Sleeping was still difficult; every night, he found himself back in Arcadia, and every morning, it took him hours to convince himself that the incredibly vivid nightmares were just that, and that he really was free.

He read a lot. He studied every single page that Coulson had given him, and asked for more, for books with both facts and fiction to help him better understand the 21st century. He always carried a notebook with him, writing up things he'd need to research later to make sense of them. He started doodling little drawings in it as well. It felt like something he liked doing. Maybe he'd also liked doing it _before_. He couldn't remember.

He spent a lot of time just walking around town, observing everyday life. The streets were constantly bustling with people. He didn't feel like he was one of them. Most of them didn't even know of the supernatural world. They had never heard of vampires or the Fae, and probably wouldn't believe if someone told them. Steve was an outsider, separated from them by that difference in knowledge and all the time he had lost. He longed for ordinary conversation. Coulson couldn't really give him that: the man seemed to be constantly working, and took every question Steve asked like an assignment, a task to solve.

A few days after Steve had settled into this strange, new routine of spending his days studying the world, he came across Tony Stark's card, which he'd entirely forgotten about. It seemed like the perfect solution to his need for company.

Steve didn't really know anything about Tony, aside from him being Howard's son, so he ended up spending some time looking up things. Perhaps an inordinate amount of time, because he grew more intrigued the more he read.

Apparently, Tony had been a weapons designer and a minor celebrity, known for a flashy lifestyle and the reputation of a playboy. Then, he'd been kidnapped by some unspecified terrorist group, and afterwards, he'd become reclusive, rarely showing up in public events, no longer appearing on gossip site headlines. That had gone together with his company shifting tracks towards a more peaceful direction, swapping weapons for everyday electronics and the like.

In the end, Steve was starting to question if contacting him was a good idea, since Tony's life seemed so drastically different from anything Steve had ever known. Tony's captivity, whatever that had been like, might give them some common ground, but it didn't exactly seem like the sort of thing Steve could just ask about from someone he'd just met. But Tony had said he'd be happy to meet Steve, and right now, he just wanted to talk to someone who wasn't Coulson or a stranger who knew nothing about the supernatural world. So Steve picked up his strange advanced telephone, and dialed the number Tony had given him.

Tony didn't pick up. The call went to the answering machine, another thing that was new to Steve, but not difficult to figure out. He left a simple message: "Hi, Tony. It's Steve. We met at Shield. If you're still willing to see me, I'd like that. Call me back."

When Tony hadn't called back a day later, Steve decided he could as well try again. This time, Tony did pick up, though his reply sounded surprised, almost shocked. "Steve?"

"Yes, it's me, I hope I'm not breaking some kind of telephone etiquette calling you again?"

"No, no, of course not. I just wasn't expecting it. I meant to call you back but I've been terribly busy," Tony explained.

Somehow, Steve had imagined he could set up a meeting with Tony sometime soon, but of course it wouldn't be like that. Tony was running research & development for one of the biggest technology companies in the country. His schedule must be very full.

"I can get back to you later then, or you can call me when you're less busy. I've got nothing but time," Steve said, mildly disappointed.

"Yes," Tony said, but then, right after, "no, wait, maybe I can clear something up. Take a break from all this. Say, for lunch, tomorrow? Midday?"

**********

This was a terrible idea and Tony should've said no.

He'd spent days locked up in his workshop, avoiding people, trying everything he could think of to shake off the curse, and nothing had helped at all. The apparitions weren't fading, but seemed to be getting worse; they looked as solid as their surroundings, and even though their mouths still didn't move, he thought he could hear their voices whispering right at the edge of his hearing, repeating _Murderer!_ over and over.

He'd read up on Norse mythology and magic, and tried a number of relevant-sounding rituals. After those had failed, he'd moved on to test pretty much every kind of other curse-breaking and misfortune-banishing spell he knew. Still nothing.

He'd pleaded with the figures, cried at them to go away, gotten angry at them and shouted at them, and shot several bolts of his magic at them, so that he now had several new holes in his workshop walls.

He'd drunk several bottles of vodka in an attempt to confuse his senses, to at least make the hallucinations look a little different. It took a lot of alcohol to have an effect on his reanimated body. Of course, it had only made him feel worse, dizzy and uncoordinated, with the visions laughing at how pathetic he was, wallowing in his self-pity.

He'd sat on the floor pressing the muzzle of a pistol against the arclight in his chest, his finger on the trigger. He knew that if he took out that light, he'd be gone. The near-perfect semblance of life that he had depended entirely on the magic; destroy the magic and he would stop, his body falling apart like the scientifically impossible, unnatural thing that it was. In the end, he hadn't done it. He had thought about death, real and final death, a lot after his reanimation, and every time, Yinsen's last words came to him. Yinsen had told him not to waste the second chance he'd been given. Giving in to the despair and ending it would be spitting in that good man's face. Tony couldn't do it.

He hadn't eaten or slept in days, and though he could endure that far longer than any living man would, it was starting to take a toll on him. His thoughts were sluggish, and he had trouble focusing his eyes on anything but those dreadful figures in front of him.

He should've said no to Steve; he'd be the worst possible company. He hadn't called Steve back partly because he'd known that, and partly because after a few hours, he'd forgotten about it, too distracted by the nightmare he was living. But when Steve had called again, it'd struck him that maybe if he said no, Steve would think Tony was deflecting because he had changed his mind and didn't want to meet Steve at all. He didn't want to give that impression.

So, he went, even though it was a selfish and stupid thing to do. He picked a cozy diner that usually wasn't too crowded, had Happy drive him there, and walked in. His ever-present silent companions followed in his wake, and took seats in empty tables close to the one where Tony found Steve.

"Hello," Steve greeted him. His welcoming smile turned into a concerned frown as he took in Tony's undoubtedly haggard appearance. Tony had changed his clothes and tried to tame his hair. His facial hair didn't grow anymore, but remained the length it'd been when he'd died, so he was spared the trouble of trimming that. But even if his guise was perfect, all the sutures invisible, there was no way he could completely hide the despair he felt.

"Hi. Is it that bad?" he tried to joke at Steve. "I had to pull an all-nighter to finish the specs for a smartwatch," he added. He was surprised to find himself feeling bad about lying to Steve, even though he spent all his days lying to people about who and what he was. Maybe this was just because he was currently feeling so goddamn guilty about everything in general.

"Well, no offense, but you certainly look like you could use a gallon of coffee," Steve said.

"Sounds great. With a metric ton of bacon and eggs," Tony agreed. "I may have called this lunch, but it's more like brunch for me."

They made their orders and got their coffees, and somehow the glares of Tony's grievously wounded entourage only seemed to grow more intense. How could he look at a smiling Steve instead of them? He didn't deserve that. Murderers didn't deserve pleasant company and friendly conversation.

"Can you pass me the cream?" Steve asked, motioning at the bowl with little plastic milk and cream tubs that was closer to Tony on the table.

"Sure," Tony said, picked it up, and handed it to Steve. As he did so, his hand brushed against Steve's, just the lightest of accidental touches.

It felt like Tony had grabbed a live wire—a white-hot flash ran through him, sudden and a little painful. The magic radiating from the center of his chest seemed to stutter, his heart skipping a few beats. Startled, Tony pulled back his hand, and dropped the bowl with a clunk.

"Uh, sorry?" Steve said, looking taken aback, but only by Tony's reaction, because if he had also felt that, surely he would've been far more surprised.

"No, no, I'm sorry," Tony returned quickly. "Should've warned you. I kind of don't like being touched, it's a quirk, nothing to do with you."

That wasn't even a lie. Tony did generally avoid touching and being touched, because he feared people might notice his true nature more easily that way, and because it made him uncomfortable, since most of his body wasn't even really his. What the heck had that been, though? It has been like static electricity, except an order of magnitude stronger. He felt like his hair was standing on end, and suddenly, he was no longer tired at all.

"Okay," Steve said, his brow still furrowed. "I'll keep that in mind. Any other quirks that I need to know about?"

 _Well, I'm a monster haunted by the people whose body parts I'm built of, how's that for starters?_ Tony thought—which was when he realized they weren't there anymore.

No one was staring at him except for Steve, confused and concerned but certainly not accusing.

They were gone.

No more ghosts of the past glaring at him.

Was that because of Steve? Had that accidental touch just done what Tony hadn't been able to achieve in almost a week? Was it just the skin-to-skin contact in general, or specifically Steve? Something about his changeling nature? Or the fact he was actually being nice to Tony?

A part of him wanted to jump up and run out of the diner right away, because he didn't know how to deal with this at all, but that'd mean more lying to explain his weird behavior, and he did want to talk to Steve, not to mention that he really needed to eat.

He also needed to say something. Steve was still staring at him. He settled on "Nah, not really. You?"

"Still working on figuring that out," Steve said.

**********

Their lunch clearly hadn't begun on the right foot. Steve was taken aback by how different Tony looked from the last time they'd met, with the deep shadows under his eyes and the haunted look in them.

For a passing moment, he thought about the Golden Avenger and the shadow that'd hit him, and if that had something to do with Tony, but why would it? Going by what Clint had said about mages and their abilities, Steve had concluded that the Avenger's brand of magic was too instantaneous and instinctive to be something he'd learned. The man in the armor must be some kind of a powerful supernatural creature, while as far as Steve knew, Tony was a regular human. Steve even went so far as to ask him over lunch, as silly as that felt, and Tony confirmed it.

"Yeah, I'm not like any of you special folks," Tony said. "Just a guy trying to make do with the cards I've been dealt."

"Do you know anything about the Golden Avenger?" Steve tried next.

Tony hummed, as if amused. "You could say that. I made his armor. Kind of extravagant, don't you think?"

"It's not exactly stealthy," Steve agreed. "Can you tell me anything about him? He's… special in some way, isn't he?"

"Obviously I'm not at liberty to share things about his identity," Tony said, just as Steve had expected.

If he couldn't get any details, at least he wanted to be sure the man wasn't in any kind of trouble, or hurt. "Do you know if he's okay? That night when I first ran into you, we had a mission and something happened to him."

"That, I can tell. He's fine. He mentioned there was some kind of a curse, but it's all sorted out now," Tony said, with a small smile on his lips. "I'm sure when Fury needs him again, he'll be there."

That was reassuring, though Steve didn't like how people seemed to just shrug off the concern he felt over the Avenger, as if the man wasn't worth their attention. Unless he was somehow invulnerable, it seemed callous and uncaring—but whether he was or not, Tony clearly wasn't going to satisfy Steve's curiosity about him.

"Okay, can I ask you about Coulson, then?" Steve asked. He'd been wondering about what Fury's right hand man was ever since he'd met him. "If it's okay to talk about these things?" He added, eyeing the mostly empty diner around them.

"It's fine, that's one reason I'm here. To tell you the stuff Shield might not. Don't worry, no one will pay attention, and even if they did, they'd think we're talking about a book or a show or something," Tony said. After the rocky start, he seemed like he was slowly starting to relax, the troubled look dissolving. "So, Coulson. He's mostly human. Do you know what ghouls are?"

"Vampire-controlled people, or something like that, right?" Steve said. He'd heard of them before, but had no idea of the details.

"That's not the most accurate description, but kind of, yeah. They get blood from a vampire, and gain some abilities from it—for starters, they don't age. I've heard it's like being addicted, and if they don't get that blood anymore, it can get pretty bad," Tony explained. "Coulson is obviously one of Fury's. The real question is how he's managed to remain as bland as he is with Fury's blood influencing him."

"He's been nothing but helpful," Steve said, feeling a little defensive over the man who'd helped him get his things in order. "Though that does explain how he kind of feels a little like a vampire, and yet not quite, and can walk outside in broad daylight."

"Feels like a vampire?" Tony asked, casting a sideways glance at Steve while chasing the last bit of bacon with his fork. "You can feel them?"

"Sort of? They're… colder than everyone else, and too still to be human? It's not easy to describe," Steve said. "I've actually wondered if everyone feels that, or if I'm different in that sense. You don't, then?"

"Oh, I wouldn't know a vampire if it bit me," Tony said, and paused for a moment to chew his food. "I mostly know who's what by reasoning it out," he went on. "I'm curious about how you do it, though—you might just be particularly perceptive, or you could have an additional knack for seeing things. Just out of curiosity, if vampires feel cool and still, how do I feel, then?" Tony asked. It very much sounded like a challenge.

Steve looked at Tony, focusing on every detail, as if he could somehow see deeper than skin. Tony stared right back, his gaze sharp. The bags under his eyes were still there, but he no longer looked quite as weary as he had when he'd walked in. Maybe the food and coffee had helped. His hair was slicked back, but wasn't quite behaving at his neck, unlike his neatly trimmed moustache and goatee. All in all, he was quite handsome, Steve had to admit. Tony's clothes were casual, a long-sleeved and a short-sleeved T-shirt layered over one another, the short-sleeved one on top carrying some logo Steve didn't recognize. He made a mental note to look it up.

Aside from the actual physical details Steve could see, there wasn't really anything else, which was kind of strange. Even when encountering strangers on the street or in shops or cafes, he usually had some kind of a general impression of a mood, a hunch of who that person was, a feeling of something beneath the surface. Because of how scattered his memories were, he wasn't sure if he'd always had these impressions of people, or if it was a skill he'd acquired in Arcadia. Probably the latter. But no matter how he stared at Tony, there wasn't anything at all; it was as if he wasn't really present. If Tony knew magic, shouldn't he feel a bit similar to Bruce? Or had Bruce felt like he did because of that failed transformation spell—or could Tony be deliberately hiding his magical aura, or whatever it might be called?

"I'm not really feeling anything," Steve finally admitted, with a shrug. He was half worried it'd sound insulting.

Tony quirked an eyebrow. "Are you telling me I'm boring?"

"No, that's not what I meant," Steve said quickly.

"Don't worry, I know I'm not," Tony said, leaning back in his chair, grinning. "I've got my own brand of awesome. I don't need fangs to be cool."

**********

Tony was glad to have had years and years of practice in keeping up the perfect poker face, because he'd seriously put himself in the trickiest situation he could imagine, with Steve staring at him as if trying to read his mind.

What the Hell had he been thinking, asking Steve that?

It wasn't just that he was giddy with the fact that the visions of his victims were finally gone—which he almost still couldn't believe, and was half expecting them to reappear any second—but more than that, something about Steve was making him behave in completely irrational ways. It had to be a changeling thing, all that freakish Fae magic making Tony act against his better knowledge. There had been no reason to draw Steve's attention to himself like that.

Tony did his damnedest to keep his cool, keep his appearance casual, and to hold on to his human facade. He could influence it somewhat, make it more impenetrable by focusing on it, and he hoped that'd be enough to keep Steve from seeing straight through it.

Somewhere, at the back of his mind, he almost wished Steve wouldn't be fooled, and would just call him out for what he was: a fraud and an abomination. That'd put an end to the foolish hopefulness that had only grown stronger with the unexpected breaking of the curse. It was as if a spark of something warm and alive had settled in his chest, deep inside the vessel that held the cold blue fire of the arclight. Tony knew it was a false hope. It would be stupid to hold on to that. Good things didn't happen to him. That something good had happened today was a fluke.

No matter how nice Steve was towards him now, sooner or later, he'd begin to sense the deep wrongness of Tony's very existence, and he'd draw back and start to shun Tony. Everyone did that. Even Pepper, Rhodey and Happy, the people closest to him before his reanimation, were spending less and less time with him. He didn't blame them for it, because he knew it was mostly subconscious. They couldn't help it.

All of it was just what he deserved. He didn't deserve friends or good things. He'd had enough reminders of his shortcomings as a person over the last week. Even if the visual manifestations of his guilt were now gone, it wasn't as if he was about to forget that. He knew his hands were stained with so much blood that he could never wash it all away.

Steve should've just skipped over the part where he was nice, and gone straight for the part where he was doing his best to avoid Tony—but that wasn't what happened, in the end. Instead of pointing out that Tony felt like the rotten and terrible and wrong thing that he was, Steve just stated that Tony didn't feel like anything at all. That didn't make Tony feel relieved, but just added to the mounting pile of guilt about constantly misleading Steve. To cover for what he actually felt, he offered Steve his best grin and a couple of half-hearted one-liners, and that was it, situation over, all clear, moving on.

The rest of their little lunch date was perfectly harmless, or more than that, even pleasant. Steve had a lot of questions about the supernatural world that Coulson's files hadn't explained well enough. Tony did his best to reply. He was, of course, biased, but he still thought Steve would get a more balanced view of the world from him than from Fury's ghoul.

Though Steve made a few telling remarks about how he was struggling to fit into the world, about how he had more free time than he knew what to do with, and how he thought he might need a few hobbies, he didn't go any deeper into it. Not that Tony was expecting him to share all his troubles with someone he barely knew. Maybe next time—but Tony shouldn't be thinking about a next time. Steve deserved better than Tony. Steve should have actual regular human friends, not so-called friends who pretended to be human, who couldn't even experience any warm feelings like friendship.

And still, when they got up to head their separate ways and Steve asked whether Tony might be up for doing this again, same time next week, because it had been very helpful and Steve had liked being able to talk about everything, Tony couldn't say no.

**********

Steve was glad he'd decided to call Tony, because the lunch had been exactly what he'd needed. A normal conversation, even if the topics were outlandish. The diner wouldn't have felt unusual to Steve back in the 40s, and although the contrast between the ordinary surroundings and all the talk about vampires and mages and ancient gods was absurd, it also helped to keep him grounded. Whenever Steve was on his own, his mind tended to stray to his captivity and to his repeating nightmares, but talking to Tony, all that seemed further away, easier to ignore.

Tony was still a bit of a mystery to him. That wide-eyed shock when their hands had touched and the complete lack of the sort of impression Steve tended to get from people were only the start. Steve couldn't help thinking that Tony's easy-going and witty manner, well suited for the billionaire inventor that he was known as, weren't the whole truth, but a front for what he really felt, who he really was—which Steve just couldn't catch.

Steve definitely wanted to meet Tony again, both because he was intrigued and was curious to find out who this man really was, and because, in spite of whatever secrets Tony might hold, he was nice and ordinary company to counter all the bizarre things they were dealing with.

Forgetting how different Tony's everyday life must be from Steve's was all too easy—the very expensive-looking car with which Tony's chauffeur picked him up was an obvious reminder of it. Steve didn't own a car, and didn't even have a driver's license. Not that he minded that. He was perfectly happy walking through town. It was around six miles back to his place, which he took as an opportunity to see some parts of the city he hadn't yet visited.

It was a crisp late-autumn day, the sun shining from an almost cloudless sky, and Steve found himself smiling as he navigated the crowded afternoon streets. Perhaps for the first time since he'd been rescued, he felt like there might be a place for him after all. Not as one of the ordinary people, but as part of the hidden community of supernatural beings and the regular humans who knew of them. That did set him apart from most of the passers-by, but he could live with that, if he knew there were others who were in the same position and understood what he was going through.

He'd been walking for around fifteen minutes when a gnawing unease began to leach through his good mood, as if someone's eyes were following his every movement, a feeling of a shadow lurking at the corner of his eye. He knew he had a tendency to get overly wary of such things, especially after Fury's warning words on the first day, but this was impossible to shake off.

Once he'd turned the next corner, he stopped, peeking around it. There, among the dozens of people on the street, were two that stood out. No one else was paying particular attention to them, and at a glance, they were just like anyone. When Steve looked more closely, though, he saw past their human skin, and it seemed to him as if the short woman had a curved tail with a stinger at the end, and the burly man next to her was covered in big, armor-like scales and sporting long claws.

Steve had seen both of them before. They'd been among the loyal servants of his Master.

Any trace of his cheerfulness was totally gone, replaced by near panic. Suddenly, his heart was racing and all his muscles tensed up, ready to either fight or to flee. He might be able to take on the two, since he had plenty of experience of fighting his fellow changelings, but it'd be a stupid thing to do in the middle of a crowded street. It'd catch everyone's attention, not to mention that innocent people could get hurt.

He needed to get away, and he couldn't lead them to his home. Steve hurried on for a few more blocks to put some distance between himself and his tail, and crouched behind a parked car to pull out his map. He was in an unfamiliar area, not sure of what each of the smaller streets would look like, but he quickly planned a route with as many twists and turns as he could think of and memorized it.

If he moved fast, he could lose those two, he was sure of it. He also remembered how Fury had said that using his talents would make him more visible. He wasn't sure what counted as using his talents. His talents weren't like the blue bolts of magic that the Avenger threw around—he was just faster and stronger than an ordinary human would be. If he ran really fast, would that make him easier for other changelings to trace him? Would it be better to just walk?

In the end, he settled for a middle ground, jogging at a speed that wouldn't make him stand out from any regular person out there for a run. Maybe that'd be enough to throw them off. It took a lot of focus and effort not to rush ahead as fast as his legs would carry him, because he still felt like a prey animal that was being chased.

A few times, he stopped to hide and to look back, and he couldn't see them following. Maybe he had lost them? When he'd finally reached his own street, he took a much longer break, hiding and waiting before advancing to his door. Still no sign of them, or of anyone else that stood out from the crowd.

Satisfied no one seemed to be after him, he slipped in, and took the stairs up to his floor, still wary, glancing over his shoulder every few steps. The building was quiet, and there was no one around that he could see.

Only when he was inside his apartment, within the safety of the protective magic that permeated the walls, could he relax. He slumped on the couch, a little shaky from all the adrenaline.

The worst thing was, now that he was safe at home, he wasn't even sure anything had actually happened. Had he really seen the two Fae minions following him and escaped, or had that just been a trick of his overactive imagination, fuelled by the endless nightmares? Had he just been jogging through the city because he'd been spooked by imaginary people that had never been there?

His earlier feelings that he might fit in and actually begin to enjoy his new life felt very much premature. He couldn't spend the rest of his years like this, always hiding and glancing over his shoulder!

He'd just got up to head to the kitchen for a glass of water when his phone bleeped, with a message from Coulson: _We've located him. Meeting at base tonight. Bring overnight bag. I'll pick you up at 18._


	5. Five-Finger Discount

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Dear readers: if you've been paying attention, you may have noticed that I already slipped from my announced posting schedule. That's because I haven't really had time to work on this, what with all the Steve/Tony anniversary things. I also ended up claiming something for Cap-IM RBB, which I wasn't originally planning on. Because of this, I've decided to change my schedule and approach for this WIP.~~
> 
> ~~The new plan is to write the rest for WIP Big Bang. That should give me that push to actually finish this, which posting it as a WIP clearly failed to do. So, the good news is, there should be art for this when it's finished. The bad news is, this means I won't be posting any new chapters before the BB starts posting, which is in July. Then again, seeing as how writing this has (not) been working out, I probably wouldn't have been able to stick to my schedule anyway.~~
> 
> ~~tl;dr: This story is going to be on hiatus until July!~~
> 
> Story is finished; thank you for your patience! ^_^

The whole gang was together again: Natasha, Clint and Steve in their skin-tight black costumes, Bruce looking as disheveled as ever, and Coulson his polar opposite in his crisp suit. For once, Tony wasn't late, which gained him an arched eyebrow from Fury.

"It's almost as if you're eager to be here," Fury said.

"I heard there's going to be a field trip," Tony said, settling down in a chair that creaked its protest at his cumbersome armor. He was genuinely curious to hear more about what was going on.

"There will be, yes," Fury said. He walked to the screen at the end of the long table like a teacher about to start a lecture. "After a lot of detective work, we've managed to track down Loki." The screensaver showing the Shield emblem shifted to a mugshot of Selvig. "The god appears to be possessing our previous associate, Erik Selvig, and he's clearly working on putting together some kind of a big ritual. My experts still aren't sure what the goal is. He might be just attempting to get himself a physical form."

"I honestly don't see why he'd bother," Clint muttered.

Natasha nodded her agreement. "Being able to hop from one host to another gives him a lot more freedom to move, and it’s the perfect disguise."

"It might be, but I bet the physical form of a god from Asgard would surpass any body he can get in this world," Bruce said. "Still, I think you could be right, that doesn't sound like a particularly ambitious goal for a trickster god. How do you know he's preparing for a ritual?"

"He's been systematically collecting a set of artifacts related to one particular burial mound in Norway, and it's unlikely he's just picking them up as souvenirs. Now, he's already been to Norway, where he obtained the majority of the objects that were originally in the mound, and was last seen in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he stole one more artifact from a local university," Fury explained, advancing his slideshow to a collection of Viking trinkets: brooches, torcs, intricately decorated daggers and the like. "We happen to know that there are a few more artifacts in Germany, and one that's part of a private collection located in Paris."

"We're going to Paris?" Steve asked, sounding as excited about it as a kid who'd just been promised a trip to Disneyland.

Tony, personally, had no particular desire to go to Paris. He'd been there plenty of times for various business-related events, and mostly found the city tedious. He knew enough French to get along, but that didn't help with how incredibly noisy and crowded it was. Even if he'd still held romantic notions about things, which he didn't, he wouldn't have held them for Paris. Besides, he wasn't fond of the idea of the six of them spending some eight hours crammed into a plane, all of which he'd have to stay in the armor. Though Natasha, Clint and Coulson all knew who he was, and he didn't really care if Bruce knew or not, he had no intention of revealing his identity to Steve.

"Paris is the plan, yes," Fury said. "You should be able to get there well ahead of him, assuming he'll follow the most direct route and visit the two German sites that we know of first. You get there, set up a trap for him, catch him before he can complete the set, and bring him in."

"Without drawing too much attention or breaking too many necks, I assume," Tony added.

"That should go without saying," Fury said sharply. Was he mildly annoyed by the insinuation that that hadn't always been the protocol? "If I wanted him taken out, I'd just send Widow and Hawkeye. I want both Loki and Selvig, and I want both of them as sane and sound as possible."

"Loki's probably going to be able to jump to a new host fairly easily," Bruce noted thoughtfully. "We'll have to find a way to stop that."

"You'll have plenty of time to think about it on the flight," Fury said. "For now, you'd better get going. If he gets there before you, you won't stand a chance. There's a private jet waiting with your names on it."

**********

There weren't many things about Steve's past that he was entirely certain about, but among those were the facts that he'd never been abroad, and he'd never been on an airplane. He knew that from both the files that Shield had kept about him, which Coulson had given to him, and from the vague memories that he had. This meant that he was more than happy to go on a mission to Paris. He noticed that none of the others seemed to feel the same way—this must be old hat to them.

The airplane that they boarded wasn't much bigger than a bus, but the interior didn't even remotely resemble one. The chairs were wide and had expensive-looking leather upholstery, and there were couches and tables as well. Steve had no idea if all planes looked like this, or if this was a particularly luxurious one. He couldn't help staring at all of it, wide-eyed, and he bit his tongue not to blurt out things that'd make him seem embarrassingly naive. 

Steve followed everyone's examples as they sat down and fastened their seatbelts. As ridiculous as it was, he actually had butterflies in his stomach. They were going to fly. Even if it was an everyday experience for the others, he still found it exciting. He almost felt as if he were young again, back in those careless days when he'd never even heard of Arcadia and the Fae.

He had gone for a window seat, and had his gaze fixed on the window as the plane rolled along the tarmac to the runway, accelerated, and took off. The night-time lights of New York soon fell far below them, and their glimmer seemed more magical than much of the magic Steve had witnessed.

The changelings that had been after him wouldn't know he'd left the city, he thought. Far above ground, surrounded by the very people that had rescued him, he felt safer than he had anywhere else since his return to the world.

Only once they'd climbed above the clouds, with nothing but darkness beyond the window, did he focus his attention on what was going on around him. That wasn't much: in front of him, Bruce and the Avenger, who sat facing one another, were deep in conversation about how to best contain Loki, scribbling things on both paper and tablets. Coulson put in a word every now and then. Behind him, Natasha and Clint were talking softly amongst themselves, something about a previous mission in Paris.

Steve didn't really have anything to add to either conversation, and he decided he might as well try a nap. It was late, and he was used to a human sleep schedule, not the reversed one the vampires had to adhere to.

To his surprise, even though he wasn't even lying down, it was the most restful sleep he'd had that he could remember. There were no nightmares at all, though there was a slightly odd dream where he was sitting in the diner with Tony, and Tony was apologizing profusely for something that Steve never caught.

When he woke up again, hours later, the first dawn sunrays were coloring the clouds pink and orange outside, and the vampires were nowhere to be seen. Coulson was reading a book, Bruce was dozing off, and the Avenger was still poking at a tablet. He'd taken off his gauntlets, probably to operate the touch screen without using a stylus, but his helmet was still on.

"Good morning," Steve said, to catch his attention.

"Morning," the Avenger replied, not as much as turning his armored head. Coulson raised his eyes from his book and nodded at Steve.

"Did the vampires go to sleep?" Steve said.

"Retreated to their coffins at the back of the plane," the Avenger said.

Of course, they'd have to do that, with the sunrise, and since it was the Covenant's airplane, they were prepared for it.

Steve wondered if the Avenger needed rest like everyone else. This seemed like a good opportunity to get to know him a little better. "You catch any sleep?" he ventured to ask.

"I'm pretty sure you're not my mum," the Avenger replied, his tone unmistakably obnoxious.

"Just trying to make conversation!" Steve exclaimed, starting to get annoyed, too.

The Avenger finally lifted his eyes from the tablet, but just enough to look straight ahead, still not turning to face Steve. "Right. I know you're not entirely used to modern social conventions, Rogers," he said, making it clear that he knew who "Nomad" was, "but I'll give you a helpful tip. If you want to make small talk, don't ask questions about personal matters that are none of your business."

"Never mind me, then," Steve said sourly, leaning back in his chair and looking out of the window again.

So much for getting to know the man inside the armor: the Avenger could hardly make it any clearer that he didn't want to talk about himself, or about anything else, for that matter. Steve had heard him hold casual conversations with the others, quip at Natasha and Clint, and go on at length about magical things with Bruce, sounding perfectly amiable. It was almost as if he specifically didn't want to talk to Steve.

Steve wondered if he'd done something to offend the Avenger, but he couldn't come up with anything—they'd barely talked at all. Their most personal interaction to date had been that one glance that Steve still hadn't forgotten, at the portal, when Steve had been rescued. Since then, it felt as if the Avenger had been deliberately avoiding eye contact with him. Maybe that was it. Maybe he'd somehow violated the man's privacy with that look, done some accidental, magical faux pas, though he certainly had never meant to. Should he apologize for it? If it turned out he was wrong, it'd be a really odd thing to do, so perhaps not.

Whatever was going on, Steve thought that things could get awkward if they were stuck doing missions together, and the Avenger remained this antagonistic towards him.

**********

By far the easiest way to prevent Steve from suspecting anything about his identity was to keep the interaction to a minimum, Tony reasoned. Just being plain rude to him seemed like a good way to go about that. He didn't even have to lie to do that. It worked remarkably well: a few curt remarks were all that it took to get Steve out of his hair. Problem solved. No more Steve trying to make small talk. Steve would probably think the Avenger wasn't a very nice person, which was only fair, because it was entirely true.

The flight felt every bit as long and tedious as Tony had expected. The only good thing about its duration was that he and Bruce had had enough time to build a plan for capturing Loki. Theoretically, it was solid. Whether it worked in practice, they'd have to wait to find out, because they hadn't done anything like this before: neither of them had experience dealing with non-corporeal gods. Fury must've had people in his Covenant who did, and Tony was annoyed at him for not sending an additional mage with the team. All they had were some notes and a supposedly foolproof enchanted vessel to transfer Loki into, once they'd caught him. Clearly, Fury didn't want to risk his own precious entourage.

A few hours before landing, their flight attendant, who Tony assumed to be another Shield ghoul, showed up to serve breakfast for those who were into such things. In this group, that meant only Bruce, Steve and Coulson. Tony wouldn't have minded a cup of coffee. It was a routine he'd held on to, even though he no longer got any pleasure from the taste of it, and caffeine didn't really have much of an effect on him. Alas, the armor meant that was off-limits. He hoped that if they had to stay in Paris for an extended period of time, they'd book a decent hotel and he could get some privacy to lounge around without the armor, and have room service bring him some snacks.

Coulson gave them the latest update on Loki, which was that just as expected, he'd struck in Germany, grabbing an object from Berlin. There was one more in Stuttgart. Once they received a report of him taking that as well, his next goal would undoubtedly be Paris.

They landed at the business airport of Le Bourget, a familiar enough spot to Tony, at around two in the afternoon. That meant the vampires would be out of action for several more hours. To wait for sundown would be to risk that Loki slipped between their fingers. Besides, Tony and Bruce wanted to do some reconnaissance, see what the location was like, and to try and find the best spot for what Tony was referring to as their god-trap. One could never blame him for being too modest.

Steve came with them, because there wasn't much else for him to do, while Coulson stayed to hold the fort in the jet. Tony would've preferred not to have Steve around, especially with him constantly staring at everything in open-mouthed wonder, as much as he was clearly trying to tone it down. They had no need for the extra muscle, which was all Steve's skills boiled down to, except for a bit of untrained ability in extra-sensory perception. Bruce and Tony had more than enough physical prowess between them to hold back anyone trying to attack them, and there was no reason why anyone would. Loki had been acting alone until now, relying on stealth rather than brute force.

They took a taxi through town to Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the prestigious area where their antique collector lived. Tony's armor and Steve's neckline gained them a confused look from the driver, but when Tony told him in French that it was for a fashion show, the confusion gave way to understanding. That was one good thing to be said about Paris. In many other cities, walking around in costume might've drawn a lot of unwanted attention; here, it'd pass for haute couture.

The apartment they were targeting was almost as big as Tony's mansion, spanning the top three floors of a four-storey building overlooking the Seine that Steve described as gorgeous, with unconcealed enthusiasm. The ground level had a few luxury stores which would close by six, and shouldn't be a problem. There was only one entrance to the residential floors, with stairs and one elevator. Tony couldn't have asked for a more convenient site.

"I can take out the elevator in a matter of seconds," he noted to Bruce. "We wait until he's up, and set up our trap in the stairwell."

"That's perfect," Bruce agreed. "The only challenge will be time. It's not going to take him long to get in and grab the artifacts."

"Yeah, we'll need more time than that, but I'm sure our talented teammates will be able to keep him occupied for a bit. And if he feels like he's chased and has to flee as fast as he can, he'll be less likely to pay attention to any strange vibes in the stairwell that he might catch otherwise," Tony said.

It was a simple and elegant plan, and Tony was convinced they could pull it off. Unlike in that mess in Bayonne, here, they would have the upper hand. They'd done their homework, while Loki would have no idea they were on to him. It'd be even better if they had the vampires backing them up, so hopefully Loki wouldn't show up before sunset.

They set up shifts keeping watch over the entrance. They saw no sign of Loki, or rather, Selvig, whose body the god was walking around in, before the sun went down and Clint and Natasha showed up. By that time, Coulson had texted to report that Loki had been to Stuttgart in the early afternoon. Depending on what transport he was taking, he could be in Paris in a matter of hours.

To minimize the trouble with the locals, just as Fury had asked for, the two vampires paid a visit to the collector whose home they were staking out. A few minutes later, the woman left the premises in a hurry.

"Widow told her we're from Interpol and need to borrow her house for a few days," Clint explained to the others. "She's going to stay in a hotel for now and shouldn't give us any trouble."

"You just told her that and she left?" Steve asked. Tony rolled his eyes inside his helmet, and noted that he really needed to educate Steve on vampire abilities the next time they met for lunch.

"I can be very persuasive," Natasha told him, with a smile that looked predatory even though her fangs didn't show, and dangled the apartment's keys between her fingers. "Come on then, Nomad. Let's go in. The three of us should take position. Showtime could be anytime now."

Anytime now turned out to be in another five hours. Either Loki was traveling by land and not air, or he'd stopped for a steak tartare, or to suck the souls of a couple of innocent passers-by, or whatever it was that he considered dinner.

Past midnight, the traffic on the streets hadn't stopped, but there was a little less of it, so it was easy to spot the man in a distinctively non-Parisian looking windbreaker getting out of a cab right in front of the building. Next to Tony, Bruce picked up his phone and texted Natasha that the target was in sight.

They gave it a few minutes after Loki had entered the house before following him in. Tony fried the elevator with a single bolt of magic sent through the wiring, and they hurried to set up their god-trap. The noises of battle upstairs began before they were even halfway done, but they couldn't stop to worry about that. They needed to focus and get this right. There were two vampires and a changeling fighting the god; they should at least be able to slow him down for another ten minutes.

The spell was intricate and required both of their skills, with Bruce outlining Norse runes that he'd selected based on careful study in the floor and the walls, and Tony powering them, so that they lit up in blue flame. When the last one was done, closing the circle, the air of the stairway around them filled with a faint bluish glow, and Tony could just see the outline of the shimmering, distorted sphere of the magical containment field.

They'd done it, and none too soon: a few minutes later, Loki came rushing down the stairs. Obviously he could only run as fast as Selvig could, and the man was no sprinter. Natasha, Steve and Clint hurried after him, chasing him—straight into the trap, exactly where they wanted him.

**********

Fighting a god possessing a mage wasn't too different from the countless foes Steve had faced in Arcadia. Loki's strategy relied primarily on illusions; it seemed like he wasn't physically much stronger than the body he was inhabiting. He kept projecting himself into multiple locations at once, the copies so realistic that Steve had no way to tell which one was real. Natasha and Clint seemed to have the same problem, repeatedly attacking what they thought to be Loki, only to have the figure vanish into thin air.

It didn't really matter that they did no damage, as long as they weren't tricked into letting the real Loki slip out of the door. Steve settled himself solidly in front of it, and fought off every Selvig that tried to approach it. When Loki realized he wasn't getting anywhere, he switched to other types of illusions: suddenly, Steve found himself holding off a dragon that filled the entire room, and at least some parts of it were solid, a clawed limb connecting painfully with his shoulder. Finally, Clint managed to shoot an arrow at the beast, and it reverted back to Selvig, with the shaft sticking from the back of his shoulder.

At that moment, the floor started to shake as if in an earthquake. It felt perfectly real. Steve couldn't remember whether there were supposed to be earthquakes in Paris, and he was looking around for shelter and wondering if the two men downstairs would be all right when Selvig pushed him aside and rushed out of the door—and suddenly, the room was perfectly still again. It had also been an illusion.

"Damn it! Sorry," Steve breathed.

Natasha glared at him, shaking her head, but Clint shrugged. "That was a pretty good trick, almost bought it myself. Let's hope we gave the others enough time."

They ran down the stairs, catching up with Loki on every step, until he ran headfirst into the glowing sphere of magic waiting on the ground floor.

"What is this? Let me out!" Loki yelled, pushing at the shimmering air around him.

Now that he wasn't fighting and constantly projecting illusions around him, Steve got his first good look at him. It seemed as if there was another figure superimposed with the perfectly ordinary-looking middle-aged man that Loki had taken over, a tall shape with golden horns and a green cape.

"We're not letting you anywhere," the Avenger said. "We're going to extract you from that hapless mage you're hiding in, put you in a nice little box prepared just for you, and take you home with us."

"Do you honestly believe you can do that, Patchwork?" Loki sneered at him. The nickname took Steve by surprise. Did Loki know the Avenger?

"We've already got you contained," Banner pointed out. "Just a matter of scaling it down."

"Is that supposed to scare me? You're nothing but a pathetic gathering of failures and rejects! Two mages whose mistakes blew up in their faces and turned them less than human," Loki taunted, looking from Banner to the Avenger. "Two vampires forever stuck as underlings, too timid to take the blood and the power that they crave," he said to Clint and Natasha, and then he turned to look at Steve. "And then there is the changeling, uselessly trying to escape his inevitable fate."

Steve knew Loki was trying to get under their skin, but he couldn't help the cold shiver that ran down his spine. Was Loki right? Was Steve trying to run from a fate he couldn't avoid, destined to be caught again sooner or later and dragged back to slavery?

"This pathetic gathering of rejects has got you right where we want you," Natasha remarked. "Avenger, Banner, put him in the box."

"With pleasure," the Avenger said, and crouched to pick up what looked like an elaborately decorated jewelry casket, enchanted by Fury's mages to hold Loki's incorporeal form.

Before the mages had even gotten started with whatever they'd need to do to draw the god out of Selvig, the door to the street slammed open behind them, knocked off its hinges. The man who barged in was larger than Steve, very tall and wide-shouldered, with blond hair in a ponytail. He was wearing a lab coat, of all things. Like with Loki, Steve could see the vague shadow of another person over him, wearing armor and a cape.

"I demand you hand Loki to me!" the man roared in a deep, commanding voice.

"Ah, brother! Is that you?" Loki said in a conversational tone, his expression mildly amused. "A fine frame you've found, I must say."

"I don't know who you are, but Loki is coming with us," Natasha declared, moving in on the man. He pushed her aside, which she immediately responded to with a sharp kick at his midriff.

"I am Thor, Son of Odin, and Loki belongs with me," the newcomer declared, raised his arms, and suddenly, a bolt of lightning flashed in through the doorway, striking the floor right at Natasha's feet.

"Stop him before he messes everything up!" the Avenger shouted, but it was too late: the scene turned to complete mayhem, everyone fighting Thor, lighting flashing, the fabric of the carpet catching fire. The sphere of magic around Loki seemed to be flickering, and the illusions reappeared, several Selvigs emerging in the room around them. The Avenger was shooting his own white-blue bolts around, adding to the chaos, and all of a sudden, Bruce wasn't there anymore, replaced by a huge, frenzied bear that attacked anything that moved, friend and foe alike.

Steve focused his attention on Bruce. They couldn't let the bear run off into the streets; that'd certainly cause collateral damage. Keeping him in check was a fight that only took brute force, the kind that Steve could easily handle. The others could fight the magical lightning and the illusions.

It was obvious he wasn't fighting an ordinary bear: in his shapeshifted form, Bruce was clearly stronger than Steve, and nearly as fast. Steve made use of his one advantage, which was agility, and danced around the bear, dodging its claws, keeping it occupied and away from the other combatants.

All of a sudden, the action around him came to a standstill. The illusions disappeared, leaving the hallway looking much emptier. Even the bear seemed confused, stopping his assault, hesitating, turning his head from side to side.

Where the magical containment sphere had been, Selvig was lying on the ground in a heap. There was no longer any trace of the shimmering magic in the air, nor of the blue fire that had lit the runes surrounding it.

"He's gone!" Natasha yelled, sounding uncharacteristically upset. She turned to glare at Thor, who had also stopped fighting. "Loki's gone, you asshole, and he's taken Clint!"

**********

It turned out it took exactly one vampire, one changeling, one reanimated corpse and one ancient Norse god of thunder to take down an enraged bear shifter. After a brief but intense skirmish, they had a knocked-out, human-form Bruce lying on the floor next to the equally unconscious Selvig.

"I must make haste and go after my brother," Thor stated, stepping towards the door.

"You're not going anywhere," Natasha said, her voice sharp enough to make the god stop in his tracks. "You may have been able to track Loki when he was possessing a bumbling mage, but now that he's in Clint's body, you don't have a chance in Hell. Clint is among the elite of the Covenant of the Shield, a trained spy as well as a cold-blooded killer. You want to have any luck finding Loki, you will join forces with us. That's the least you can do, to help put right the mess you've made."

It was certainly a mess, Tony thought: the room around them looked like a warzone, with some glowing embers still in the carpet, burns all around the walls and the floor, and splintered wood here and there. So much for being discreet. Tony could already hear the approaching sirens, either the police or the fire department, whichever had been alerted first.

"I'm going to stay and deal with the local authorities. The three of you, drag yourselves and these sleeping beauties to the jet before you're seen," Natasha said in a voice that left no room for objections.

Thankfully, they managed to rouse both Bruce and Selvig enough that the two men could walk out of the building under their own steam. They got away in the nick of time, just as the first fire truck reached the house. They stumbled onwards on foot for several blocks to get further from the authorities, with Steve half carrying Selvig, and Bruce leaning on Tony's armored shoulder. Thor hovered behind them, still wearing a slightly singed labcoat, and Tony imagined that if someone happened to notice the ragtag procession in the Parisian night, it would probably look like a mad scientist had taken his test subjects for a walk.

When they deemed they were far enough, they hailed for a cab, which got them to Le Bourget without further incident. The only one to speak during the drive was Steve, who made a point of asking both Selvig and Bruce if they were all right, to receive a muttered "okay" and "fine" in response

Back on the jet, Bruce claimed one of the couches, and Steve, still being terribly nice, found him a blanket. Selvig sat in one of the regular seats, his head in his hands. Thor stayed standing, his arms crossed—his biceps were even bigger than Steve's, how about that?—looking out of place and as if he didn't know what to do. Coulson had stood up from where he'd been seated when they'd walked in, and was eyeing the group with a frown.

Tony leaned against the back of a chair. "Well, that was one massive clusterfuck. Great job, Dr. Thundergod."

"You stood in my way," Thor said sullenly. "My brother is not your problem. I was sent to take care of him, and I will do my duty."

"Sent by whom?" Steve asked, taking a seat on the other, still unoccupied couch across from Bruce.

"Why, my father, of course," Thor said.

"Odin, the Allfather?" Bruce said. He'd wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, and looked as bedraggled as a werewolf after a particularly busy full moon night.

Thor stared back at him as if he'd asked an entirely obvious thing. "Of course."

"Of corse," Tony repeated drily. "There's just one thing I don't get. Why are you wearing a lab coat?"

"I assumed this was normal. It is what this body wore when I took it," Thor said.

Steve stood up and stepped closer to him, peering at the name tag on the coat. "Dr. Blake," he read aloud. "So, you just took over his body, without a second thought?"

"Great. Another irresponsible incorporeal god," Selvig groaned from where he sat.

"You're one to complain. You're the one who let Loki loose in the first place," Tony pointed out.

"You are the one responsible?" Thor said, and stepped towards Selvig, his angry glare so intense that Tony could almost see lightning dancing on his skin. "You must pay for this!"

"Hey, no, no, tone it down," Steve said, putting a hand on Thor's shoulder. Clearly he'd left his sense of self-preservation in Arcadia. "I'm sure he'll face repercussions, Prince Fury is going to see to that. Lynching people here and now isn't going to help us get what we want. We all want to catch Loki, and Selvig's been with him for the past week. Shouldn't we at least ask if he knows something?"

"We should, and we will," Coulson joined the conversation, "and I expect a full report from all of you, as well as our new friend," he turned his eyes towards Thor, "but all of this must wait until the Black Widow is back."


	6. Sixth Sense

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the deadlines set by [WIP BB](http://wipbigbang.dreamwidth.org), I have finally finished the story in its entirety! It took more than a year and a half, but here it is: the longest thing I have written in my life.
> 
> Also thanks to the BB, there is now awesome art for the story, done by one of my favorite artists (and overall one of my fave persons to collaborate with), [MassiveSpaceWren](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MassiveSpaceWren/pseuds/MassiveSpaceWren)! You can see it [here](http://massivespacewren.tumblr.com/post/163062985878/my-art-for-the-wip-big-bang-i-was-lucky-to-get), go give sad (but pretty) franken!Tony all the love! <3
> 
> Finally, a huge big thank you once more to my betas, [Lets_call_me_Lily](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lets_call_me_Lily/profile) and [antigrav_vector](http://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector) for taking the time to look through this enormous thing. :)

Selvig didn't know much that they could use. Being possessed by Loki hadn't given him any kind of a window into the god's mind, so all he had to go on were his memories of where he'd been, constantly a silent witness, trapped in his own body with no control of what was happening. That meant that all he could tell was the same list of locations and items that they'd already known. Loki had now completed his collection, since he'd somehow managed to snatch the last two from Selvig's pocket after moving on to Clint.

Thor wasn't particularly helpful either. He had many things to say about Loki, about how ruthless and deceptive he was, and how he hungered for power, but as for what his specific goals or the ritual he was working on might be, Thor had no clue beyond "I am sure he seeks to subjugate your realm!"

They conferred with Fury, who ordered them to stay in Paris for another few days, looking for any clues about where Loki might've gone. They had Natasha in the group, after all. She was trained for this sort of thing, and if Loki had access to Clint's abilities while inhabiting his body, Natasha would know what those were and how they worked.

Unlike the others, Steve didn't mind staying in the city for longer, because he'd barely had time to see any of it, though he did wish it had been in different circumstances. They used a hotel close to the airport as their base of operations. While Bruce and the Avenger attempted different kinds of locating spells and Thor tried some magic of his own, Natasha took Steve with him to run around the city at night, asking people questions. Steve felt like he was a dead weight on these missions, though he saw how it was safer to work as a pair than alone.

After three days and nights of fruitless searching, Fury recalled the team back to New York. Just as Steve had expected, the telling-off they got from him when they reached the Covenant's lair was not as restrained as the previous one, but seemed to send even the usually unflappable Natasha and the armored Avenger cowering in their seats. The Prince was clearly reaching a whole new level of disappointed.

"You're dismissed, the lot of you. Get out of my sight," he finished his reprimand. "If I come up with a task that's so goddamn simple even you lot can't mess it up, I'll be in touch."

So, Steve found himself back in his apartment, feeling frustrated at having failed again. He wasn't particularly happy to be home, either—all things considered, he would've rather stayed in Paris. For one, he'd slept much better there than he ever had in New York. Being within the familiar walls again felt like he was several steps closer to Arcadia.

Back home, the nightmares came back with a vengeance. On the first night, he found himself in his Master's house again, not in his cell but deep in the dungeon, where he'd been taken when he had tried to rebel or run away. He could feel the cold, damp rock behind his shirtless back, far more real than his soft bed. The enchanted manacles around his wrists were heavy, and he knew he couldn't break them, no matter how he tried.

He wasn't alone, this time. Chained to the wall across from him were four familiar figures: Clint, Natasha, Bruce, and the Golden Avenger, still in his armor, although it was dented in many places, and its surface seemed dull, stripped of its usual bright golden shimmer.

"You think they can protect you," his Master sneered at Steve, a grimace on his skull-like face. "How wrong you are. They can't, and you can't protect them, either. Your punishment for betraying me shall be to watch them die, one by one. They will die because of you." He pointed a sharp-nailed red finger at Steve.

"Let them go! They've done nothing to you!" Steve cried out, pulling uselessly at his chains.

"Oh, but they have, haven't they? They tried to take you from me." The Red Fae walked closer to Steve's teammates, a dark glimmer in his eyes. "Which one should be first? One of the nightwalkers? I have a stake waiting for each of them," he said, picking a sharp wooden stake from out of thin air and brandishing it at Clint, who hissed at him, his fangs exposed, then at Natasha, who spat at him. "Feisty! I like that. Perhaps I'll keep you a little longer yet," the Fae said, grinning.

He stepped to stand in front of Bruce. "I could take out the shifter. He may not be a child of the moon, but I expect a silver bullet shall work just fine." The stake he was holding transformed into a pistol, which he pressed against Bruce's forehead. Bruce growled, an animal sound, and he was straining against his shackles, but he remained human. Some magic in the metal must be keeping him from changing. "And if it doesn't, well, that will only mean I must get more creative."

The Red Fae moved on to the Avenger's seemingly impassive metal form. "But no, I think I shall start with this one. He is the easiest by far, after all, kept alive by the most revolting magic I have ever witnessed. It hardly counts as murder. I'm only restoring the natural order of things."

He waved the pistol out of existence, and reached towards the orb that glowed a pale blue in the middle of the golden armor's chestplate. In one swift move, he grabbed it and yanked it out—and the Avenger crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut, hanging limply from the manacles around his wrists.

Steve woke up with a terrible empty ache beneath his ribs, as if it had been him and not the Avenger whose chest his Master had reached into.

He wanted to grab his phone, call the Avenger and make sure he was really all right, because the dream had been as real as anything. Of course, he couldn't do that no matter how much he wanted to, since he didn't have the man's number, and probably never would, considering how they didn't seem to get along.

"Patchwork", Loki had called the Avenger, and then grouped him together with Bruce as an unfortunate mage, and as "less than human". Now this—the Master calling him unnatural, and only alive because of magic. Where had that come from? Was it true? It was as if he'd known things about the Avenger that Steve had no idea of. But if it had only been a dream—could it have only been Steve's imagination, or had it been some kind of a premonition?

The thought that there might've been some truth to any of it, and that Steve could be putting his teammates at risk, weighed heavily on him. He wasn't exactly close with any of them, but they were the only people even remotely resembling friends that he had. That they might be harmed because of him was a suffocating feeling as tangible as if the Red Fae's fingers were closing around his throat.

He didn't go back to sleep that night.

The days that followed he mostly spent indoors, trying to distract himself with reading, sketching and music. Just venturing the short walk to the nearby grocery store, he felt like there were eyes constantly following him, though whenever he looked around, there was no one he could spot staring at him.

The time for his lunch with Tony was approaching fast. He considered canceling it, but that would've felt like giving in. He'd been looking forward to it. Staying at home and avoiding the city outside already felt too much like he'd let his Master win. It was that realization, more than anything, that made him decide to go. He wouldn't be intimidated into voluntarily confining himself inside four walls. It was entirely possible there had never been any real threat, and even if there was, at least Tony should be safe. The Fae had no reason to be interested in him, and he hadn't been in Steve's dream.

Steve would go, he decided, have lunch with Tony, and have a good time, like any ordinary person.

**********

Tony wouldn't mind if he never had to deal with Fury again. He was done with the Covenant of the Shield. Good riddance to the shady bastards. He'd only ever been helping them to repay for what Fury had done for him, offering him a proper introduction to the supernatural world, and to fix his dad's mistakes when it came to Steve. Of course, the latest two missions he'd also been on because Steve seemed to have some inexplicable magnetism that made Tony want to spend time around him, but really that was more trouble than it was worth.

All this time he'd wasted with Shield, whose morals were questionable at best, was time he could've spent going after the real bad guys. He'd had his eye on a big drug cartel operating in several South American countries for a few weeks now. The information Tony had suggested that they were using Stark Industries weapons, and they seemed to have some kind of a link to local Hunters. They were long overdue a visit from the Golden Avenger.

Before he left, though, he had a lunch appointment with Steve, and no intention of missing that. After the time spent in Paris being intentionally rude to him as the Avenger, maybe being able to talk to him as a friend would assuage his guilt somewhat—even if they weren't friends, and half of it would still be lies.

This time, Tony told himself, if Steve asked for a third meeting, same time next week, Tony was going to say no. He'd come up with some kind of an excuse. That was really the only thing he could do: same time next week, he'd probably be raining destruction on some drug lord in Colombia or Peru.

Steve texted in the morning to ask if Tony wouldn't mind meeting in some other restaurant. Tony had nothing against that, and proposed a place close to the Mansion. He used to love the burgers there, back in the day, and had a suspicion that Steve would appreciate them.

Just like on the first lunch they'd had, when Tony arrived, Steve was already waiting for him. A week ago, Steve had frowned at how haggard Tony had looked; this time, it was the other way around. Steve did smile when Tony entered, but it was subdued compared to what Tony had grown used to, the dark circles under Steve's eyes pronounced against his fair complexion.

"Hi," Tony said.

"Hi. Is it that bad?" Steve said, his smile turning a little cheeky as he repeated Tony's words from their last meeting.

"I've seen worse," Tony replied truthfully. It'd certainly take more than a few sleepless nights to make Steve look bad. "Everything okay?"

Steve shrugged and, for some reason, glanced at the door. "Yeah, just, still having some trouble adjusting, I guess," he said, with an expression that hinted there was more than that to the story.

Instead of pushing the matter, Tony motioned at the menu. "I'm sure you'll feel much more alive after you've tried one of these masterpieces."

"They do look tempting," Steve admitted. "It's going to be difficult to pick. What do you recommend?"

After they'd made their orders, there was a moment of silence, which Steve finally broke in a hesitant, low voice. "This is probably going to sound completely paranoid, but I keep having this feeling that I'm being watched," Steve said. He glanced at the door again, and at the room around them, eyeing the other people in nearby tables. There were quite a few, this time of the day.

"By someone in particular? Or just in general?" Tony asked. That didn't sound so much paranoid as unsettling.

"By _them_ ," Steve said. For the first time since Tony had met Steve, he thought he could see a flash of fear on the man's face. "By the people who held me captive," Steve added unnecessarily.

"The goddamn fairies." Definitely unsettling, Tony decided. "I wouldn't just shrug it off. You seem to be picking up on things that normal humans wouldn't notice. Besides, it's generally known that the Fae are not happy about losing what they think is theirs."

"Yeah, I'm aware of that," Steve said, grimacing.

Tony kind of wanted to grimace too, because that was hardly the way to help Steve feel better about it. "Sorry, of course you are. And who knows, maybe it's nothing. Still, I don't think it's a bad idea to stay vigilant. Is your home warded?"

"Coulson said it is," Steve said.

"Coulson works for Fury, and the Covenant consists of vampires, not mages," Tony remarked. He'd had no part in whatever protective spells Shield had put on their safe houses, and wasn't sure how good they were. Fury had included Selvig in his ranks, and the man hadn't given the most competent impression, what with the whole Loki mess. "I could come and take a look, if you'd like," he found himself saying.

"Oh," Steve said, as if that thought would never have occurred to him, and yeah, why would it? They still barely knew one another—though Tony knew Steve a little better than Steve knew him, thanks to the time Tony had spent around him wearing the armor.

Tony fully expected Steve to say no. Instead, Steve said, "I wouldn't mind if you did, if you can spare the time."

And there it was again, that foolish warm feeling in Tony's chest, as if this really meant something more than just the magical equivalent of helping Steve fix a hole in his wall.

**********

Just as Steve had hoped, sharing his worries with Tony did help, even if instead of telling Steve he was overreacting, Tony seemed to take the potential threat very seriously. It was nice of him to promise to take a look at the magical safeguards at Steve's place. Steve knew next to nothing about such things, so he had no idea how good this shielding was, and although he'd only met Tony a handful of times, he trusted Tony's opinions. Certainly more than Coulson's or Fury's, who always made Steve feel they had some kind of hidden agenda.

He couldn't deny that he was starting to like Tony. He wasn't sure if it made any sense; he barely knew Tony, and he suspected there were things Tony wasn't telling about himself. Still, somehow, Tony made Steve feel better about things simply by being around.

Once the food arrived, it put an effective stop to discussing anything serious. Steve was too busy describing how much he loved the juicy steak and the delicious sauce and the crispy rustic fries. He was glad he'd suggested they change where they meet, even if he'd originally done that out of concern that his stalkers from the previous lunch might be keeping an eye on the place. Not that the diner hadn't been nice, but this was absolutely wonderful.

After Steve had cleaned his plate, with Tony still working on his, Steve ended up talking about what he'd been up to recently, which mostly meant Paris. Not surprisingly, Tony seemed slightly amused by how excited Steve was about the trip. That wasn't a bad thing—Steve was happy to see Tony smiling more than he had the last time they'd talked.

Steve couldn't keep himself from asking about the Avenger again. "I know you can't tell me much about him, but I think I must've done something to annoy him. It's like he doesn't even want to talk to me. Has he mentioned anything to you?"

"I don't talk to him that often, mostly just when the armor needs repairs," Tony said apologetically. "I wouldn't worry about it, though. He's prickly. Not the easiest person there is. He might warm up to you."

Steve wasn't entirely convinced. The Avenger hadn't seemed to have that much trouble getting along with anyone else. "Do you think I should apologize, though?"

"Nah, just give it time," Tony said.

Maybe that was a thing Steve was actually just worrying about unnecessarily. There was no particular reason why he even needed to get along with the Avenger, except to make shared missions less awkward. He just kept thinking back to the first time they'd met, to that sadness and loss he'd sensed, and to his dream where his Master had murdered the Avenger, and he couldn't help wanting to know more about the man beneath the gold plate.

"I guess you're right. You must think I'm obsessed with him," Steve said, feeling a little self-conscious. "It's just that after Paris, I had this dream where something bad happened to him, and I felt like it was my fault. I guess he's been on my mind because of that."

Tony frowned, an unreadable look on his face. "Oh? Was this the first dream like this that you've had?"

"About him specifically? Yeah. I don't think I've dreamed of him before," Steve said. He'd already told Tony about his worries of being followed; he might as well share his dreams, too. "I've had a lot of nightmares, though."

"That's not really surprising," Tony said, eyeing Steve sharply. "Although, in your case, I wonder if there might be more to it than that."

That was a thing Steve had been thinking about a lot. "Could there be? Do people actually have prophetic dreams?"

"Sure they do, though they're never very accurate, as far as I know. More than that, though, there are ways to affect others' dreams. The Fae are particularly notorious for dream manipulation," Tony said.

Steve swallowed, the hair on his neck standing up. He had never even considered that, and it made a lot of sense now that he thought about it.

Tony must've picked up on the alarmed look on Steve's face, because he instantly added, "Of course, they could also just be nightmares, and nothing more. I know I've had a fair share of those, and I'm one hundred percent convinced no one is affecting me. With the messed up backgrounds most of us involved in this supernatural bullshit have, I doubt anyone who actually needs sleep can avoid bad dreams," he ended on a slight grimace.

Tony had never really spoken about his history and his introduction to the hidden magical part of the world. All Steve knew was based on rumors and old news items, and he was curious, but he still felt like that was something too personal to ask about.

"I just wish I could know for sure," Steve sighed.

"Well, if it's an external influence, there should be ways to detect it," Tony said. "I can look into it if I check the wards at your place."

"I'd really appreciate that," Steve said.

"It's the least I can do," Tony said. "Before that, though, how about coffee?"

They moved on to coffee, and back to lighter topics. Steve did his best not to think of how every conversation about the Fae had only made him more worried and more convinced that something was wrong. He tried to immerse himself in the travel-related anecdotes that Tony was recounting, to focus on the animated way Tony was talking and on how glad he was to be here with Tony. It still wasn't enough to distract him; he couldn't shrug the gnawing feeling that his entire life was headed towards an inevitable unhappy ending, and that he had no control over any of it.

No matter how many times Steve repeated to himself that he was overreacting, that he should just relax and wait, that they'd try and sort it out together really soon, he still felt like something was amiss. If anything, he felt worse than before, as if there were eyes on him at the very moment, watching his every move.

Was he just imagining it, or had the atmosphere in the room actually shifted and become more threatening?

Moving his eyes from Tony to take a good look at the restaurant around them, he realized that there weren't as many other customers there anymore. It was awfully quiet except for Tony's voice, no background chatter or clinking of knives and forks to be heard. The waiters were nowhere to be seen.

Trying not to think about the bad things had been the exact opposite of what he should've been doing. Now that he'd stopped to look, he realized the other customers were all wrong. They weren't who they'd seemed, just sitting in the background, seen from the corner of his eye.

It couldn't be just in his head. He wasn't imagining it. It was real.

There were ten of them, and he'd seen many of them before. The woman with the scorpion tail was there, and the armor-scaled man with claws, and many others, inhumanly tall or translucent or sporting horns and spikes. 

They weren't human. They were all changelings, each one of them, and they had him and Tony surrounded.

He'd stepped right into one of his nightmares.

**********

Halfway through his classic tale of That Trip to Prague where everything had gone wrong, Tony noticed Steve's eyes had gone deer-in-the-headlights wide, his face a notch paler than usual. He was staring at a table nearby as if the occupants had grown horns.

Anything that could make Steve look so frightened had to be unimaginably terrifying.

Tony had no knack for seeing through people's magical masks, but it didn't take a genius—which he happened to be—to tell that something was off with the scene. The other diners were staring back at the two of them, not talking, not eating, barely moving at all. Put that together with Steve's shocked expression and his earlier words about feeling like the Fae were keeping an eye on him, and Tony could guess what was going on. It wasn't good.

"Tony, we have to go," Steve said in a low, steady voice. Tony could see the fear shifting to a look of deep determination, Steve sitting up straight, a defiant set to his jawline.

Their enemies were too many for Steve to fight them on his own, that was obvious, and if these were all changelings, let alone Fae, they'd have a range of powers. Even with Tony fighting by Steve's side, the odds were not in their favor.

If Tony joined the fight, if he used his magic, Steve would see him for what he was. Steve would recognize that magic; he'd instantly know Tony was the Avenger. Worse than that, he'd see the gruesome stitched seams all over Tony's body, lit up in brilliant blue fire. Tony would reveal himself, and with that, he could say goodbye to whatever this thing was that he had going with Steve. 

He'd actually been looking forward to visiting Steve's place and being able to help him. That was never going to happen now. Steve wouldn't want Tony anywhere near him when he realized what Tony was and how Tony had been lying to him all along.

Tony would regret losing Steve's company. That spark of hope Tony was still stupidly hanging on to would be extinguished for good, the flicker of warmth gone again. Maybe that would be for the best—it was only a question of time anyway. There were few things Tony was as used to as regret.

Whatever the consequences, there was no doubt in Tony's mind about what he needed to do. No way in Hell was he going to let the Fae take Steve again.

The changelings probably had no idea who Tony was. Loki had recognized him, sure, but Loki had had Selvig's mind to sift for information. The Fae had only ever seen him in armor, and as far as he knew, that was impermeable to most types of magic. They shouldn't have a clue he had powers of any kind, now that he was in civilian clothing. He was pretty sure he could use the element of surprise, just like he'd done in Arcadia.

"I'm going to get us out of here," Tony said firmly, fixing Steve's eyes with his. "Take cover."

"Tony? What are you—" Steve began, obviously baffled.

Tony kicked back his chair and stood up. "Take cover. Get down," he repeated at Steve, who finally caught the drift and crouched beneath their table.

Tony focused on his magic, concentrating it at the arclight, in one bright pinpoint. He felt it flow along his body towards the center of his chest, along each line of stitches, and he knew Steve would see it. He would see it and be puzzled, and then he'd realize what it had to mean, and he'd be angry and disappointed, but none of that mattered.

Around them, the changelings had also stood up, and they'd shed their human guises. They were a menacing collection of claws and scales and horns, of not-quite-human figures almost as misshapen as Tony's patchwork body. Several of them were moving in, talons and stingers ready to strike.

Tony had only done this a few times before, and it had always been in desperate circumstances. He could not mess up now. He had to get it right.

He released the magic in one uncontrolled burst, spreading out from him in every direction. It carried the destructive power of a pressure wave, accompanied by that feeling of how deeply wrong and unnatural his very existence was, which he knew would be stomach-turning to the changelings.

All the windows shattered as the wave of magic hit them, splintered glass raining on the floor. The changelings staggered back. Some of them were holding their heads, others stumbling, off balance, leaning on furniture and walls. None were left unaffected.

Tony realized his head was swimming, too. He'd put all he could muster into that single blast. That might not have been the smartest move: he would be entirely useless in a fight now. He could barely stay on his feet.

Steve had stood up, his mouth open in wonder, but his expression quickly closed off, turning determined again. "Let's go," he said, and put a hand on Tony's back, pushing him towards the door.

They managed to slip to the street before the changelings had fully recovered from the blow Tony had dealt them.

"My place," Tony told Steve, struggling to catch his breath. "It's not far. Best wards in town."

**********

They rushed through the crowded streets, Tony leading the way. He seemed unsteady on his feet, so Steve stayed close by, just in case.

He couldn't quite make sense of what he'd just witnessed. He'd been rescued from a fate worse than death at the last minute. The changelings had had them, but Tony had—Tony had taken them out with magic that had looked incredibly familiar. Steve had seen that electric blue glow several times, in the first battle when he'd been rescued and the two missions where he'd fought side by side with the Golden Avenger. He couldn't possibly be mistaken.

Even more confusing than the magic had been how Tony had changed when he'd struck at the changelings. Even from the crouched position Steve had been in, under the table and behind Tony's back, he'd seen Tony light up with blue magical fire that ran along lines that crisscrossed his body, shining bright even through his clothes. Steve had no idea what that had been; he'd never seen anything like it, not even during all his years in Arcadia.

Tony was going to have a lot of explaining to do.

In a way, it made sense. He had thought Tony had felt familiar, the first time they'd met, and when that curse had hit the Avenger and Tony had showed up at the diner looking exhausted, Steve had wondered if there was a connection. Clearly, there was. Tony was the Golden Avenger. There was no doubt about it in Steve's mind.

Steve expected the changelings to chase after them, but with how crowded the streets were, and with the people that had gathered around the restaurant to gape at the aftermath of the magical explosion, he couldn't see them. In any case, they made it to the Tony's Mansion safely.

The place was even more impressive than Steve had imagined. Tony opened the sturdy steel gate in the thick concrete wall just enough for them to slip in. As it closed behind them, Steve found himself surrounded by a feeling of perfect quiet and stillness, something he'd never felt in his apartment. Perhaps Tony was right, boasting that he had the best wards.

They crossed the well maintained yard to the massive house. The butler who met them at the door seemed to be made of metal, like some kind of a robot, but a magical fire like the one Steve had seen on Tony flickered at its joints when it moved.

"Good afternoon, Sir," the robot greeted them, in what sounded like a perfect British accent.

"Jarvis," Tony replied. "We're going to need some peace and quiet. Do not let anyone in. I mean that. No matter what they say or who they claim to be. No one comes in. Tell them I'm not here. Same goes for calls. I'm not here, and there's certainly no one with me."

To Steve's surprise, Jarvis quirked one metallic eyebrow, the human expression oddly out of place on the metallic face. "Delicate matters to deal with, have we, Sir? Very well. No visitors, no calls."

A few more steps, and they'd reached a cozy library, with several armchairs set around small tables. The room looked like it had been decorated in the original style of the old house. Tony sagged into one of the chairs, his shoulders hunching. The look on his face was despondent, but also wary, as if he expected Steve to punch him in the gut any second.

"Let's get this over with, then," Tony said, crossing his arms defensively. "Come on. Ask me."

It couldn't be clearer that Tony thought Steve was going to be angry at him. Steve wasn't quite sure how he actually felt. More than mad, he was perplexed. He didn't understand why Tony had felt the need to keep his identity a secret. From their enemies, sure, that made sense, but from Steve?

"You are the Golden Avenger," Steve said. It wasn't even a question. "Why didn't you tell me?"

The others had probably known all along. Clint and Natasha had implied that they knew who the Avenger was, and undoubtedly Fury knew it as well, which meant that Coulson would also know. Bruce probably did, too.

"If you knew the whole story, you wouldn't need to ask," Tony said, his mouth a tight line.

"Why don't you let me make that judgement?" Steve complained, trying to keep his voice level, though he was growing more annoyed at Tony by the second. Tony had clearly made up his mind already, and decided that if Steve learned truth, he wouldn't be reasonable about it. It was unfair of Tony to expect the worst of him. What could Tony possibly have done that would be that bad? Nothing Steve had seen so far suggested in any way that Tony was a bad person.

"I will, I just know what it's going to be," Tony said, with finality. "See, I don't know what you've heard about me, and funnily enough, I've never actually told this story to anyone from start to finish," Tony began, seeming more resigned than nervous. "Thing is, I am dead. Bad guys launched one of my own rockets at me, and I died. Literally went splat all over the landscape. Not exaggerating. Dead as a doornail, in multiple pieces."

"You seem to be in one piece now, and you certainly don't look dead," Steve said, frowning. None of that made any sense to him, but listening to Tony's voice and looking at him, Steve was struck with that same sense of loss he'd seen in the Avenger's eyes, back when they'd first met.

"Yeah, I know I don't. It's a very good trick, better than what the vampires have going on. It's all thanks to an alchemist by the name of Yinsen, who's also dead, and unfortunately, no one was around to bring him back. He stitched me together. There just wasn't quite enough of me left, so he had to get creative and use bits of various other people as well. Other people who are dead because of me, killed with weapons I designed," Tony explained. He opened the top two buttons of his shirt, and ran his fingers along his neck. "Here, see?"

As Steve looked, what he'd thought to be intact, normal skin shifted under Tony's fingers, a little like how Steve had seen other changelings' nonhuman features. There was a line of neat stitches running around Tony's neck, where his head joined his shoulders. It wasn't even partially healed: it didn't look like a wound that'd been tended to, but lifeless, dead flesh held together by nothing but thread.

"Obviously, if you think about it scientifically, this doesn't make any sense, but that's how magic is," Tony went on. "Sew together a close enough approximation of an intact human body, cast the right spells, and you can create a very good impression of life. That's me."

He went on unbuttoning his shirt even further, revealing another line of sutures, perpendicular to the one at his neck, running down the middle of his chest. Steve suppressed the reflex to look away: clearly, Tony wanted him to see this, so this wasn't the time to be chaste.

"On the surface, you can't tell me apart from a living man. I'm not cold and dead like the vampires, because of this." He stopped after the top five buttons, and held his shirt open.

Had Tony taken off his shirt at any earlier time, Steve would've instantly known he was the Avenger, because in his chest sat the same blue, glowing sphere that Steve had seen in the middle of the golden armor, the very one that the Red Fae had torn out in Steve's nightmare. It looked less bright than usual, Steve thought, but maybe that was because Tony wasn't wearing the armor. Unlike the stitches, which looked gruesome and terrible, there was something enticing about that glow. It didn't seem like a bad thing, but a lone point of light offering safety in the deep dark night.

"What is it?" Steve asked.

"Yinsen's magic, contained in a vessel that I came up with. The thing that keeps me going. Without the arclight," Tony said, tapping at the blue orb, "I'd be a rotting pile of mismatched body parts. So, there you have it: I'm a monster."

No matter how much Steve had been thinking about the Avenger, and wondered about Tony's mysterious captivity, he could never have come up with this. Steve's transformation in Arcadia, from the much smaller man he'd been to the strong and fast one he was today, had been a gradual one over decades of time. Tony had had his life torn away from him and his entire existence turned upside down in a single blow. It sounded horrible.

Steve couldn't quite wrap his head around the fact that Tony was as much of an undead being as the vampires. On some level, he was still mad that Tony had kept that from him; Tony had even implied to Steve's face that he was an ordinary human, when he really, really wasn't—but now that he knew the truth, Steve also understood why Tony had done it.

Steve couldn't deny how gruesome those stitches looked, but he did his best to push the instinctive revulsion away. At the end of the day, all the supernatural beings Steve knew had faced physical changes of some sort when they'd left their human life behind. This was just another example. 

"You're not a monster, Tony," Steve said. "No more than I am. I'm not the man I used to be, either."

"And yet you're a good man. You haven't killed anyone," Tony said, staring at Steve, the most despondent look on his face. "You're still far more human that I am. I'm nothing like you. You probably think we're friends, but we're not. Friendship, love, happiness, I don't get these things anymore. It's like someone took a color palette and trashed all the warm tones. There's just revenge and regret. That's all I have left."

"I don't believe that," Steve said firmly. He didn't understand what Tony was going on about. "Friendship isn't some feeling that you have or don't have. It's just two people looking after one another. You've done plenty of that."

Tony grimaced and shook his head. "You just don't get it, do you? I'm not a good person. Whatever I do that makes me look like one, it's all an act. Just like it's nothing but a magical illusion that I seem like a living man." He pushed himself up from the chair, keeping one hand on an armrest for balance. He seemed shaky, his face the same deathly pale shade as the skin surrounding the sutures holding him together. "You know what. I'm really tired. I think I'll go take a nap. Anything you need, ask Jarvis. He can get you a cab to the Covenant's base, or whatever."


	7. At Sixes and Sevens

Tony had definitely overdone it. The drain of the blast he'd sent at the changelings and the painful conversation with Steve had left him feeling totally wrung out, emotionally as well as physically.

He could barely drag himself up the stairs. The arclight in his chest was more gray than blue, and by the time he reached his room, he could feel the stitches pulling at his skin at every seam. It was thoroughly disturbing. It was as if he were about to fall apart; who knew, maybe he would if he kept going. Better not find out.

Stripping would've been too much of a strain. He landed on top of the bedspread without even taking off his shoes, and was out like a light.

When he woke up, it had grown dark outside. He'd slept through the better part of the day, for once without any dreams that he could remember. As he got up, the blue glow that reflected back at him from the mirror was reassuringly bright. Almost as if nothing bad had happened. If only that were true.

Steve had reacted far less negatively to Tony's confession of everything that he'd been hiding than expected, but Steve certainly hadn’t been happy either. After having a bit of time to think about it, surely he would've come to the only conclusion that made sense: that he wanted nothing to do with Tony. By now, he must've figured out a way to get away from the Mansion safely. Fury would've arranged something.

Even if Steve might not entirely hate him, Steve definitely wouldn't want to keep having lunch dates. Tony wasn't the normal living person that Steve had taken him for, after all, the contact to regular human life that Steve missed while constantly surrounded by all sorts of freaks like Tony. Steve would find someone else, soon enough. He might even come across another changeling who wasn't serving the Fae—Tony knew those were around, and someone like that would be perfect company to Steve. They'd probably have helpful suggestions for how to deal with Fae stalkers, too.

Though his magic was fully replenished, Tony still felt numb, even more than usual. There was no more spark of hope. Nothing but cold, emotionless energy in his chest. Still, given the choice, he'd have done the same thing again. He had stopped the Fae from taking Steve. That was the most important thing. Even if he had lost Steve, at least Steve was still around.

He should probably call Steve later, to make sure he was okay and in a safe location. Or maybe text him. Calling might be too much. Before that, though, he needed a snack.

Tony might lack the ability to perceive the supernatural things around him, but he could tell that Jarvis was waiting in the corridor before he opened the door. Jarvis' magic was an extension of his own, and that, he could sense.

Jarvis stood by the door, as still and expressionless as ever. Knowing him, he might've been there for a while.

"Something up, J?" Tony asked.

"It would seem so," Jarvis replied. "You have received eleven phone calls. Three from Prince Fury's number, two from Miss Natasha, and six from numbers that were not in the directory."

Shit. Something was definitely up. The vampires wouldn't make repeated phone calls just because they wanted to hear his voice. The unknown numbers could easily be Shield burner phones, or possibly the Fae trying to get hold of him. Even worse was who hadn't called him.

"No calls from Steve?" he checked. If something was going on—what if Steve hadn't made it to safety? Had the vampires been trying to reach Steve?

"No, but that is hardly unexpected, seeing as Mr. Rogers is still in the library," Jarvis said. "I took him tea and sandwiches two hours ago."

Steve had never left. He was still here. Well, _that_ was unexpected. Maybe he was still too concerned of the Fae to even consider venturing outside the Mansion?

It didn't have to mean anything. Tony would not allow himself to sink into some stupid cycle of false hope again. He was done with that. His relationship with Steve was purely professional, based on them being part of the same team, which Tony was about to quit anyway, and that was it. Steve being here just meant he now had two things to deal with: whatever the vampires were bombarding him for, and seeing Steve out safely.

"Make some snacks for me, too. Swap the tea for coffee," he told Jarvis. "I'll be in the library."

**********

"Hi. You're looking better," Steve greeted Tony, who'd finally made a reappearance. Steve had been starting to wonder if Tony would just avoid him until the end of the world.

Tony's hair was sleep-mussed, which was kind of adorable, and his complexion had returned to a healthy tone, although Steve thought he could see a trace of the sutures at Tony's neck, if he really focused. Tony hadn't buttoned up his shirt, so the orb of magic in his chest was visible as well, and it seemed much brighter than when Steve had last seen it. He definitely looked better.

"And yet, I'm still just as dead," Tony said, his voice harsh. "Why haven't you left, Steve?"

"I felt like we didn't quite finish that conversation," Steve said. He really wanted to do that, since Tony hadn't given him a chance to even properly figure out what he felt, let alone talk things over. He'd had another reason to stick around, too: Steve felt remarkably safe inside these walls, safer than he had in his apartment, or the Covenant's base. He didn't want to leave any sooner than was absolutely necessary. That time might have arrived, though, considering how hostile Tony seemed.

"From where I'm standing, yes, we did," Tony said. His face was as cold and impassive as a vampire's, and clearly he'd brought up whatever mental, magical walls he used to shield himself, because the sadness Steve had sensed during the previous conversation was completely hidden. There was nothing but a blank, unfriendly facade. "I've told you how things are," Tony added. "You know who I am, and you know what I am. No amount of you being nice and me pretending to be friendly is going to change that."

"Tony, you don't have to be like this!" Steve exclaimed, getting up from his chair to face Tony properly. "Look, I don't care if you're undead! Half the people I know are vampires! Heck, I don't even know if I can call myself a living man. The talk in Arcadia was that staying there for too long costs you your soul. Maybe I'm just a ghost, a shadow of who I used to be, but so what? This is the life I've got, so I might as well make the best of it, for what it's worth."

Tony didn't seem in the least affected by Steve's words. "See, there's the difference. Maybe your life still is worth living."

"Maybe you're just too busy feeling sorry for yourself to realize that yours could be, too!" Steve said. It was harsh, but he was starting to get fed up with how fixed Tony was in his views, as if nothing could ever change.

"Don't talk about things you can't possibly understand!" Tony growled. "See, this is a conversation that isn't going anywhere. Maybe you should be, though. I'm honestly surprised Fury hasn't called you yet. He's been pestering me repeatedly while I was asleep."

Steve took a deep breath, doing his best to swallow all the confrontational words he wanted to spill out. Tony was right about one thing. This wasn't going anywhere. "I don't have my phone," Steve admitted instead. "It was in my jacket pocket, and I left my jacket at the restaurant."

"Well done," Tony sneered. He dug his own mobile from his pocket. "I'll sort this out, and tell them to pick you up."

Steve was too proud to say aloud that he preferred Tony's home to any other house he'd visited in all of modern-day New York. If Tony didn't want him here, fine. He still felt like it was based on entirely convoluted reasoning on Tony's part, but it didn't seem like Steve was getting through, no matter what he said.

Tony called Fury, then Natasha, then Coulson—and none of them picked up. A call to the general number to the base that he had also went unanswered. 

"Okay, this isn't normal," Tony said, frowning. "It's past sunset. At least one of them should answer. Something must have happened."

"Maybe Loki got to them," Steve suggested. He was starting to get worried.

"Could be," Tony agreed. "I'm not sure what to do next. Might need to pay a visit to the base, see if anyone's home."

"If you go, I'll come with you. It might be dangerous," Steve said.

"Absolutely not," Tony said. "The Fae could be waiting for you. They don't care about me. I can manage."

"They know you now," Steve pointed out, "and I don't think they like you very much."

"I'm used to looking after myself," Tony said, casting a glare at Steve.

For the second time, the conversation was rapidly declining into an outright row, but it was cut short by a knock at the door.

"Yes!" Tony barked. "What?"

"Sir? You have Miss Natasha at the door," Jarvis said. "She says it's urgent. Should I tell her you're not in?"

**********

It was all too easy for Tony to fall into the same spiteful role he had been keeping up when interacting with Steve as the Avenger, replying in the most negative words that he could think of. He hated himself yet another bit more for how naturally it came to him. It seemed to be working, too: Steve was starting to return his antagonism in kind. He'd push Steve away, and Steve would go and find better things to do. Tony's not-quite-life would settle back in its well trodden paths of revenge and guilt. As soon as he'd managed to shove Steve out of the door. Hopefully Natasha would help.

They didn't let her in before double-checking that it was really her. They asked her several questions no one else should be able to answer, and Steve confirmed that he didn't feel anything out of the usual that might suggest she was a Fae imposter. She didn't look quite herself, though. Her hair was disheveled for the first time that Tony could remember, and her clothes were singed and torn in several places. It looked like she was fresh out of a fight—one that had been more difficult than what she normally faced.

"What the Hell took you so long, Stark?" Natasha growled as she stepped in. Then, her eyes landed on Steve. "Rogers? Did I walk in on something?"

"Steve was just leaving," Tony told her.

"Well, that's where you're right. He's coming with me," Natasha said. "Why didn't you pick up when we called, Rogers?"

"Lost my phone. Where are we going? What's going on?" Steve asked. Good on him for actually questioning her orders instead of just jumping instantly when Natasha told him to.

"The base was attacked, mid-afternoon. The bastards struck when it wasn't even dark, with most of us asleep," Natasha explained, her eyes flashing with anger.

"Who'd be suicidal enough to storm the Covenant of the Shield? Another Covenant?" Tony asked. He certainly hadn't expected that. Facing one enraged vampire would be bad enough, seeing as how old vampires were among the most powerful supernatural beings, but an entire den of them? That was crazy. That would take an army.

"Loki and the Fae," Natasha spat out. So, army of supernatural beings had been on the mark, then. "They're working together. Have been for a while, it seems. They even managed to infiltrate the Covenant's ranks. Prince Fury, Coulson, Maria and I barely made it out of there. The base is in their control now."

"You lost the entire compound to the Fae?" Steve repeated in stunned disbelief. Tony could imagine how badly that'd rattle him; though Steve generally didn't seem to be afraid of anything, the Fae were a special case.

"That's what I just said." Natasha seemed a bit exasperated. "Rogers, get into costume," she added, slung the backpack she'd been carrying off her back, and pushed it at Steve. "It's in there. I picked it up from your place when I went looking for you. Stark, contact the Avenger—"

"He knows it's me," Tony told her. No need to dance around that, anymore. No more hiding his identity. The silver lining to losing the one good thing in his life: some practical things were a lot simpler now.

"So, you finally got round to telling him?" Natasha said, raising her eyebrows.

"Actually, no," Tony said. "Got outed by the Fae. They also paid Steve a visit."

Natasha's expression turned grim again. "They seem to be one step ahead in everything. All the more reason to hurry. Costumes, both of you, now," she commanded.

"And what, exactly, are we going to do then?" Tony asked, not bothering to hide his skepticism. "Take on an entire base full of Fae and Loki-lunatics, with the three of us plus your three Shield pals?"

Natasha gave him an exasperated look. "Of course not. Suicide missions are not a strategy that we use. Right now, the base isn't even first priority. We think Loki's just about to get started on the big ritual he's been preparing for all along. We can't allow him to go through with it, but we don't know any details. Luckily, we have a prisoner who might, and the two of you are going to help in the interrogation. After that, we can actually try to come up with a proper plan."

Tony wasn't overjoyed of the concept that he'd be playing good cop, bad cop, possibly with Steve. He had too many bad memories of being interrogated himself. He would injure and even kill his enemies, but torture—no, he didn't do that. Especially not when vampires asked him to. He might also be undead, but damn it, he had _principles_.

Glancing at Steve's frown, he figured Steve probably felt the same way.

**********

Steve retreated to the library to change into his costume, though he was so distracted by everything that was going on that he found himself just staring unseeingly at he dark fabric he was holding.

The Fae. The Fae had taken the Covenant of the Shield.

This couldn't be a coincidence; it must've all been planned and coordinated. They had figured out Steve was working for the Covenant, and they'd tried to take him out of the picture, so that he couldn't help Shield, and the vampires couldn't help him. That would've worked, too, except for Tony. They hadn't factored him in at all.

Tony. He'd gone from the earlier sad resignation to a cold and callous manner so completely that although Steve had first thought it was an act, he was beginning to question his assessment now. What if he'd gotten it wrong? What if Tony had really been telling the truth, and the act had been when he'd been nice to Steve? Maybe he really was this spiteful, and the way he'd acted as the Avenger, hidden by the armor, was how he really felt about things? Could Steve have misread him so badly?

It would be so easy to believe the worst of Tony—but he _had_ saved Steve from the Fae, and in doing so revealed his true nature. He'd had no practical reason to do that. He could've just escaped, let Steve fight them, and let them take Steve if he lost. The Fae hadn't been interested in Tony at all. He would've been fine. Surely that meant that either he cared about Steve, or he must be a good person, deep down, or both.

He wondered if Tony would save him from the Fae a second time today, because that definitely was something that might be called for. The thought of facing them again filled him with trepidation. He tried to shake it off. Yes, he was terrified of the idea of ending up in Arcadia again, but he wouldn’t let that render him useless. He'd resist it with every fiber of his being. He'd fight them as long as he drew breath.

He'd die rather than go back.

When Steve stepped out wearing his costume, Tony was already fully armored, waiting at the door with Natasha. It was strange seeing him like that now, when all the mystery that had surrounded the Golden Avenger was gone. Steve didn't mind not seeing his face, because that'd make it slightly easier not to think about him. They were on a mission, Nomad and the Avenger, and whatever had happened between Steve and Tony wouldn't figure into that.

Natasha led them through the yard, out of the gates, and down the first manhole cover they came across on the street.

"The Fae have eyes everywhere," she noted. "Hopefully we were quick enough that they didn't spot us. The enchantments in your costumes should help, too."

The damp storm drain they'd climbed into was pitch dark except for the blue glow from Tony's arclight. That, of course, was plenty for Natasha, who started marching in determined steps. With Tony following next and Steve at the back, he could barely see where to put his feet, but he wasn't going to complain. He'd manage.

They walked for quite some time, for what felt like a few miles. At first, Steve tried to keep track of where they might be in relation to the city above, but it was nearly impossible when he couldn't see beyond a few feet in front of Tony. Natasha's silhouette was only just visible at the edge of the light. They went down another ladder to a lower level, where the air was stale, and the floor wasn't just damp but had an inch of water on it, splashing at Steve's feet. He was glad he couldn't see it very well.

Natasha didn’t slow down at all until she finally came to a halt in front of an unmarked, slightly rusty door to their right. She knocked on it, a series of sharp taps that had to be a code of some kind. The response was instantaneous, another sequence of knocks, and the door opened, bathing the passage in light, revealing Coulson in a tattered suit.

"I've got Nomad and the Avenger," Natasha told him. "Any progress?"

Coulson shook his head. "No luck so far. Let's hope they'll make a difference. You sure they're not compromised?"

"I'll vouch for them. They were also attacked," Natasha said.

"Hm. The Fae have been busy," Coulson said, pursing his lips. "Come in, then."

They stepped into a room that was must be another Shield safe house, though one much smaller than Steve's apartment. It was cozier than the sewers beyond would've led one to expect, with a small kitchenette, a table with chairs and even a couch in one corner. At the back was another door, closed with a sturdy bolt. In front of it stood a vampire with short dark hair whom Steve hadn't met before—this must be Maria, then. At the table, a laptop open in front of him, sat Prince Fury.

"And what have the two of you been up to, then?" Fury asked, aiming a glare in Steve and Tony's direction.

"You did tell us to get out of your sight," Tony said. "Can't blame us for following your orders for once."

"The orders where I also said I'd call you if I needed you?" Fury said.

Steve bristled at that. He knew the current situation was an emergency, but he still didn't like it any more than Tony did that Fury was expecting them to instantly show up at his beck and call. He hadn't left behind one kind of slavery just to enter a slightly different one.

"We were a little busy worrying about a dozen changelings that attacked us," Steve said.

"Also, by the way, whoever did the wards on Nomad's apartment should be fired," Tony said.

"You've got your wish," Fury said, suddenly looking more weary than defensive. "Actually, you can file your complaints at the man himself, he's right here." He pointed a thumb at the door that Maria was guarding.

Steve had half feared they'd have to face someone he knew, but maybe not, if this was someone who had worked for Shield. "So, that's who you want us to grill?" he asked. "An enemy mage?"

"A man I thought to be a mage, but who probably learned most of what he knows in Arcadia," Fury said. "Which is why I thought the two of you might have more luck."

Steve was liking this less and less every moment. "A changeling mage. Does he have a name?"

"He's calling himself Zola. You wouldn't happen to know him?" Fury asked, his one visible eye steadily on Steve, his voice surprisingly soft and cautious.

Steve had to suppress a shudder at the name. He hadn't thought he'd ever have to hear it again. Zola had been one of the Red Fae's closest men, a sleazy, slippery one who had clearly enjoyed tormenting those lower than him in their Master's ranks. He had left, never to be seen again, not that long ago according to Steve's memory. Then again, he knew time on Arcadia was not the same as time in the real world. It might easily have been years.

"I've met him," Steve replied, his voice coming through low and gritty.

Fury quirked his eyebrow. "And he's not one of your favorite people?"

"He really isn't," Steve said.

"Well, now's your chance for payback," Fury said. "We know he knows what Loki is up to, but he's refusing to talk, and he's quite resistant to out methods."

"I'm not going to torture anyone," Tony said coldly.

"Not asking you to," Fury said. "Also not telling you not to. I know your particular brand of magic is effective against the Fae and their lackeys. Anything the two of you you can get out of him is more than we have now."

**********

"So, which one of us is the bad cop?" Tony asked Steve as they waited for Maria to unlock the door she'd been guarding.

Steve replied with a blank look. "Bad cop?"

Right, some major gaps in his education, courtesy of Fairyland. "Never mind," Tony told him. They didn't have a plan, and he had no idea what kind of a person they were facing. He'd just have to play this by ear.

Maria ushered them in and closed the door after them. Tony could hear her seal the bolt again.

The room was small, dimly lit by one fluorescent tube. In the middle was a lone chair with a man handcuffed to it. Classic.

Zola looked pretty much like your stereotypical mage: a mousy man with glasses and thinning hair. Tony wouldn't have paid any attention to him in Shield's corridors. What really got him, though, was Steve's reaction to the man. He stayed close to the door and seemed to hesitate for a while, but then the doubt in his eyes gave way to open anger that was honestly scary to look at.

"Zola," Steve growled. He took a few steps forwards to stand right in front of the man.

"Have we met?" Zola replied, seemingly unafraid.

Right, Steve's mask had enough magic on it to render him unrecognizable even to the Fae. He stepped closer and pulled it off to reveal his face, never moving his eyes from the prisoner. "Yes, we have. Remember me?"

"Rogers!" Zola exclaimed, his eyebrows climbing a little. "What a surprise."

Tony walked over to stand by Steve's side. "Cut the crap," he said. "Your boss knew Rogers is working for Fury. You knew he might be around."

"I can still be surprised. I thought he'd be back with our Master by now. Oh, well. It's only a matter of time," Zola said dismissively.

Steve's gaze was growing positively murderous. He crouched to talk right in Zola's face. "It's not. I'm not going back. Never. And you know what? Neither are you."

Well, well. It was starting to look like Steve was going to be the bad cop.

It wasn't terribly effective, though, since Zola didn't as much as blink. "You hold on to that fantasy. There is no escape. You don't belong in this world anymore," he sneered, with the wickedest look on his face.

Tony had spent enough time with Steve that he could tell those words struck home, as much as Steve tried to cover the effect they had on him. That, in turn, made those all too familiar dark, angry feelings that Tony harbored flare up in full, with more than a hint of protectiveness. Zola was one of the bad guys. He shouldn't just be allowed to go free. Tony gritted his teeth, once again glad for the helmet that covered his face.

He wanted to wrap his fingers around Zola's neck. Rationally, he knew he shouldn't, though. Certainly not so soon. Preferably not at all. Instead, he stepped closer, took off one gauntlet, and placed his bare hand on Zola's shoulder, letting some of his magic slip through his fingers.

Zola shuddered ever so slightly. Tony wasn't entirely sure how a changeling would feel the touch, but he expected it'd be something akin to, well, feeling a dead man's grip on your shoulder. Creepy and wrong.

"A lot of us don't belong here," Tony told Zola, keeping his voice as emotionless as he could, "but this is the best place we've got, and we're sticking to it. Rogers isn't going anywhere."

"You think you can protect him? You, a walking corpse barely clinging to some mockery of life?" Zola said, and turned his head to aim a glance at Tony. He clearly knew who Tony was, then. So much for that secret identity. "The Master will end it soon enough, and then Rogers shall return to Arcadia and remain his slave forever."

Steve looked like he was about to punch Zola in the face, and Tony would've been all for that, but then something seemed to shift on his face: Steve frowned ever so slightly, his eyes going thoughtful for a minute. Then, he stepped back, pulled up a chair from the corner of the room, and sat down opposite to Zola.

Tony seriously wished they'd come up with some kind of a plan, because he didn't have the slightest clue what Steve was playing at, now. He let go of Zola's shoulder, crossed his arms, and moved to the side to give Steve space for whatever he was up to.

"Serving the Red Fae forever," Steve repeated Zola's words pensively. "Just like you. I'm curious: is that a choice you made? Woke up one day and decided, I'd just like to dedicate the rest of my life to this evil immortal creature?"

Zola seemed honestly surprised at the question, frowning at Steve and taking time before answering. "What're you getting at? Of course I didn't. You know how it goes. Once they've set their eye on you, you have no choice but to make the best of a rotten situation."

"You keep saying that there are no alternatives. I'm telling you, you're wrong," Steve said, his eyes fixed on Zola, an unmoving, steady look. "The choice is yours. You don't have to stay. You can fight. You're only staying because you're afraid to take the risk and to see what would happen if you tried to leave."

"Leave and do what? Go where? They'll always find us!" Zola cried out, glaring at Steve as if he'd lost his mind.

"If they do, then you keep fighting," Steve said. "They tried to take me back, and I'm still here. I won't stop fighting."

"And you can never stop! What kind of a life is that?"

Tony was sure Steve wouldn't be unaffected by the words, but even though his jaws tightened and his eyes narrowed ever do slightly, he mostly covered his reaction well. "A life like what I had in Arcadia, but with one major difference: I get to choose who I fight. Tell me this, Zola: what happens if you go back?"

Zola seemed to shudder at the idea. "I get punished for failing and being caught. And then life goes on as before."

"But as it does, you'll know you could've chosen something else," Steve told him solemnly. "A life that might be more difficult, but one you'd be living as a free man."

"Protected by your Covenant? Hah!" Zola snorted. "That's switching one slave master to another."

"Not a slave master, but an employer. That's a distinction that exists out here, in the real world," Tony joined the conversation. "You do stuff for them, they do stuff for you. You should try it out."

He could see what Steve was doing, now, and it was clever. He had decided to be the good cop, after all, playing to the feelings that he understood well as a changeling. It seemed to be working, too. Zola was starting to look genuinely thoughtful.

"Why would they take me? They made it quite clear how little they think of me. They have no reason to trust me. I already double-crossed them once," Zola pointed out.

"Well, that's easy," Steve said, actually offering him a smile. "You prove that you've changed your mind. In exchange for our help and protection, you tell us what Loki is up to."


	8. Behind the Eight Ball

In the end, making Zola talk was almost too easy.

Sure, Steve had a shared past to draw from as he tried to persuade Zola, but he couldn't remember ever seeing the slightest hint that the man might've regretted anything he'd done. He'd seemed quite happy to stand by the Red Fae's side, mistreating his fellow changelings without hesitation. Would he really have enough of a conscience left that he'd be willing to try and leave Arcadia behind for good?

Steve felt almost dirty offering him help and protection. Then again, if Zola was genuinely willing to change his ways, it'd be cruel not to offer him the chance, and if doing so gave them the information they needed, all the better.

It occurred to Steve that Zola might still be playing some deceitful game. Who was to say that he hadn't been planning on divulging the details of the ritual all along? Maybe Loki and the Red Fae, who seemed to have struck an agreement of some sort, actually wanted the Covenant's team in one location, either to distract them from the real ritual or to get rid of them for once and for all.

Steve was getting awfully paranoid again, damn his life.

Whatever the truth, they didn't have much choice. They needed to do something about that ritual, and if the only information they could get was what Zola could provide, then they'd go with that.

"Loki is planning on opening a portal to his own realm," Zola told Steve and Tony, who'd mostly been taking a backseat during this interrogation, his masked metal face unreadable.

This comment seemed to catch Tony's interest. "Asgard?" he asked, stepping closer.

"Not Asgard," Zola replied, as if the question was stupid. "His true home is Jotunheim, a cold plane where giants live."

Steve frowned. These places didn't mean anything to him, and he had no idea what would happen if Loki succeeded in his plan. "Why would he do that? What's his endgame?"

"Why, he only plans to take over your world," Zola said sarcastically. "He's putting together an invincible army. He has a deal, you see. The Fae will help him conquer this realm, and in exchange, he will allow them to take as many humans into slavery as they ever wish to."

"So much for the hidden supernatural world. Everyone would know of us. Everyone would hate us. And so many people would suffer, both among us and the common folk. It'd be complete chaos," Tony commented, the trepidation in his voice clear even through the armor.

"It's not going to come to that. We'll stop them before this gets out of hand," Steve said. He'd do everything he could to stop this. He'd already been thinking he'd rather die than go back to Arcadia. He would fight Loki and the Fae to the last breath. "When is he planning on opening this portal, and where?"

He was half expecting Zola to refuse to say more, or to claim that he didn't know, but he didn't. That didn't make Steve feel any less suspicious.

"This morning, at the brink of dawn," Zola said, without hesitation. "Somewhere in Central Park. I don't know the exact ritual site."

"That gives us about six hours," Tony remarked, edging towards the door as if he wanted to rush to the Park right away.

"No time to waste, then," Steve said. "We need to tell the others and get the rest of the team together."

"Wait! What about your promise to me?" Zola complained, sounding anxious enough about it that it almost convinced Steve he was actually genuine about wanting out.

"We'll talk about it again after this whole mess is sorted out. Until then, I'm sure you'll be perfectly safe waiting in this nice and secure hideout," Steve told him.

He had every intention of keeping his promise if this wasn't some kind of a misdirection or trap. He really hoped it wasn't; they had no other information on whatever Loki was up to, except that it was some kind of a big ritual that involved those objects he'd collected.

Tony knocked on the door and called out for Fury to let them exit. Steve half expected him to hesitate and try to question them before opening it to make sure they weren’t under mind control, but he didn't; only then he realized that they probably had cameras in the room and had seen the entire exchange.

"Good work," Fury congratulated them once they were out of Zola's cell, with Maria closing the locks behind them. "I'm impressed, I had no idea you could be so manipulative, Nomad."

"I bet you expected me to just punch him instead," Steve returned, a tad tetchily. "I thought you'd realized I can do more than that."

"Far be it from me to underestimate anyone who's spent as much time with the Fae as you have," Fury said placatingly. "Now that we've got the confirmation we needed about the ritual's location, we need to get your team back together."

"Confirmation," Tony repeated. "Are you telling me you knew about Loki's plans already? You knew he'd be at Central Park?"

Fury turned to look at him, his expression carefully cool and neutral. "We'd heard a similar story from a different source."

They'd known already. This had only been a test.

Steve bristled. "You knew, but you'd have had us torture a man just confirm that information?" he said, his voice growing louder as he did.

"We needed to be sure," Fury said. "This was the best way. The details add up, which means we need to get out there and stop this ritual."

Steve wanted to grab Fury by the collar and shake him. Even if he had no love for Zola, more like the opposite, this still wasn't right, calling Steve and Tony in and making them believe their only hope was forcing the information out of Zola one way or the other. If Steve hadn't been successful with the strategy he'd chosen—would he have gone on to beat up Zola? He liked to think that he wouldn't have, but he wasn't entirely sure.

He'd always known vampires were just as liable to lie and cheat as the Fae, but he had been starting to buy into Fury's claim that he was one of the better ones out there. It still might be true that he was. He was still working for a good goal, but not in the right way.

"This wasn't the best way," he growled at Fury. "This wasn't a good way at all. You should've told us what you already knew."

"You would've been biased. It might've affected what you said to him," Fury said, staying perfectly dispassionate.

"He's not entirely wrong, you know," Tony said.

"You too," Steve said, glaring at him. "Are you siding with him?"

Tony crossed his armored arms. "No, I'm not. I'm not siding with anyone. I don't like being kept in the dark any more than you do. It's just that I can see the point in making this a blinded experiment."

"And what about urging us to unnecessarily torture someone?" Steve snapped.

Everyone around him was lying. Would it be too much to ask to have one person he could actually trust?

He'd been starting to like Tony; he'd definitely trusted him for a while there, but that was in the past. He'd now come to doubt everything he'd thought he knew about Tony. He'd been lying to Steve from the start, implying that he was just a regular person with some talent in magic. Maybe he really had been lying about everything.. Maybe Steve had just liked the human front Tony had put up. Maybe the things he'd said today were the truth, and he wasn't any better than the scheming vampires.

"Boys, stop this," Natasha called out, stepping in, her hands raised in a placating gesture, palms outwards. "Now is not the time. Can we please save the moral debate for a time when the world isn't about to end?"

**********

"Couldn't agree with you more," Tony said, glad for Natasha's interruption.

He couldn't stand seeing that look of betrayal and disappointment on Steve's face, not when it was aimed at him. He might not have many feelings left, but he certainly had regret in spades, and right now, all his regrets had to do with Steve.

He shouldn't have allowed himself all that wishful thinking about Steve. He'd really started to hope that maybe his life could change and that somehow, he could make this work, even if he'd known that the odds were against it. He should've been open about who and what he was from the start. That way, things would never have gone as far as they had. Steve probably wouldn't have wanted to have dinner with him. And Steve definitely wouldn't have mistaken him for someone he wasn't, like an actual good person.

On top of the regret, he was slightly annoyed at Steve for being so naïve. He must've heard it from several people already that you couldn't trust vampires, not even ones that weren't actually hostile towards humans, like the Covenant of the Shield. Prince Fury lied more often than not, and so did his underlings. They had their own agendas, and if they occasionally acted in ways that seemed good or altruistic, that was because it served their purposes. They wanted the world to stay as it was; they'd carved themselves a nice cozy niche in it. Of course they wouldn't want Loki or the Fae messing that up.

Tony really, really didn't want them messing it up either, so Natasha was absolutely right.

"We need to stop this ritual. After that, you're free to punch both Fury and me in the teeth if you want to, for what little good that'll do," Tony added, trying to give Steve a serious, steady look through the eyeholes of his mask.

Steve's half-mask did nothing to hide his angry look, and the clenched fists didn't help either, but he took a deep breath. "Okay. Yeah. We'll do this, because it needs to be done and it's the right thing to do. And once it's over, I want nothing more to do with any of you."

"If you don't, fine, that's your choice," Fury said, carefully non-confrontational.

Tony wanted to roll his eyes. Steve wouldn't manage a week on his own in this world. He needed a support network, he needed others who knew about supernatural things and about magic, and could help him stay hidden from the Fae. He'd barely made it this far. Without the Covenant, he would've been even worse off. He wasn't going to say that aloud now, though. Maybe they could talk about it later. If Steve still agreed to talk to him about anything. He was pretty sure that he'd also counted Tony on the list of people he'd want nothing more to do with—and with that, Tony circled back to regret again. Not productive.

Sort out global disaster first, wallow in regret later.

"So, how many people can the Covenant send to help us?" Tony asked Fury.

"You're looking at them," Fury said, actually sounding a bit apologetic.

Tony looked around. There were still all of four people in the room in addition to him and Steve: Fury himself, Natasha, Maria and Coulson. Three vampires, one ghoul.

"You can't be serious," Steve blurted out. "You have hundreds of people working for you!"

"A lot of whom were staked or otherwise incapacitated in the attack, or are currently held prisoner at the headquarters, or otherwise unaccounted for," Fury said, spreading his arms. "Many of the humans or ghouls might be under mind control. I will try to send the word out and contact any people who managed to escape the attack and might be out there, but I can't promise they'll be around."

"So you expect the two of us to repel an army of Fae and Norse gods?" Steve said, eyeing Tony.

"The two of you, plus Natasha, as well as Banner and Thor," Fury said. "We just need to get hold of those two. And Clint, if you can find him and free him of Loki's control."

As plans went, this wasn't the greatest one ever. The five or six of them would hardly be an impressive army to counter the supernatural forces they'd be facing. Then again, they did have some pretty unique talent between them. Besides, it wasn't as if Tony had anything better to do with his time. He'd throw all he had at this. If they failed, then it wouldn't really matter. If he died—really died, for good—then at least his sorry existence would end while serving a good cause.

"I can try to track down Banner," Tony offered. The shifter might be elusive, and had fallen off the grid after the Paris fiasco, but Tony was pretty good at finding people, with the right combination of magic and tech. "Finding Thor is going to be trickier. We don't even know if he's still in that body we last saw him in."

"We could try to get in touch with Selvig," Natasha suggested. "He wasn't at the compound when we were attacked."

"I can see to that," Coulson offered.

"Can we trust him? He might be working for Loki still, or the Fae," Steve said.

"I don't know. I'm not even sure I can trust you," Natasha returned. "I certainly don't trust Zola. I don't really trust Selvig, either, but he's our best bet for informing Thor about this situation. If we're unwilling to go to him, then I'm all out of ideas."

"You're right, and we should ask him," Steve said, his eyes stormy as he glared at her. "But we need to make one thing clear. I'm not sure I can trust you either, and that's unacceptable. We can't do this if we can't at least trust one another." He lifted his chin up, straightening his shoulders, turning into the defiant, stubborn person Tony was used to seeing him as. "I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, for as long as it takes to stop this ritual. I need you to do the same. If we go out there together, if we face all those enemies side by side, I've got to know I can trust you. I've got to know you'll give this everything you've got, and that we'll stick together, and that if I ask you to do something, you will follow my orders."

Tony held out a hand towards him, palm outwards, to stop him. "Hold on, superhero, I feel like I missed something here. Who made you the leader?"

"We're going to be fighting changelings and the Red Fae, maybe even other Fae, if we're very unlucky. I have decades of experience with them," Steve said steadily. "We need to work together if we want to have any chance at this. To work together, we need a team leader. I'm the most qualified. There's really no discussion there."

"If you'd asked me, I would've suggested you," Fury said.

"I'm not going to oppose that," Natasha said.

If Tony had had to pick, he would've happily picked Steve, too, but just on principle, he still said, "Okay, you're not wrong, but I'm not going to just unquestioningly do whatever you say. If I don't think it makes sense, you can expect me to tell you."

"I wouldn't expect any less from you, Avenger," Steve said, his tone as cold as it ever got.

Somehow, that cold seemed to permeate the magic that kept Tony going, sending a chilly shiver running through him. He hated this. So many regrets.

At least he was still wearing the armor, and Steve wouldn't know how awful this made him feel.

"I'm going to head back home and start looking for Banner," Tony changed the topic. He really was done here. "Anyone who wants to join in, feel free. My place is conveniently next to the ritual site anyway."

**********

Steve didn't really want to go with Tony; he'd seen more than enough of him today. On the other hand, he also didn't want to stay with the vampires. He'd seen more than enough of all of them, too. What he really wanted was some time for himself, some peace and quiet to sort out his thoughts, and maybe a punching bag to work some of this frustration and anger out of his system.

He felt like all his earlier, hopeful feelings that there might be a place for him in the world had just been completely taken away. His semi-ordinary life had only been possible courtesy of the Covenant. Without them, he'd have nothing; no place to stay, no job, no income, and no one to tell him how to navigate this modern world he still wasn't used to. Especially if he also cut ties with Tony, which he honestly was starting to feel like he should.

Tony had probably been right. He wasn't a good person. He was just as self-serving and just as shady as the Covenant's vampires. He'd simply been better at hiding it.

Of course, taking a time-out right now was out of the question. They only had a matter of hours left before Loki would move on with his ritual. At least he was going to get his chance to put his anger to productive use in what would no doubt be a desperate battle, since Steve was certainly not about to pull his punches when facing the Fae.

Caught between two bad choices, he quickly decided he'd rather sit around at Tony's mansion than spend more time with the vampires in the dank underground hideout. Natasha followed them back as well. Steve suspected it was both so that she would be close to the ritual site, and so that she could keep an eye on the two of them for Fury. Because no matter how many discussions they had about trust, suspicions still hung in the air, and probably couldn’t be dispelled no matter what.

Steve would trust them during the battle. He'd have to. If he didn't know the others had his back and followed his lead, he'd spend the entire fight watching over his shoulder, and that would not be a fight he could win.

He had memories of fighting as a part of a team, plenty of times, in Arcadia, and the Red Fae had often put him in charge. He had a knack for seeing what would be the best way to counter a group of enemies. He knew he could give the Fae a run for their money today, if they actually worked together.

He wasn't at all sure that they could win. He had no intel on what kind of a force they'd be facing, but the numbers wouldn't be on their side. They'd also be working on a timer, since they needed to find Clint, free him from Loki's control, and get him and Natasha out of the playing field before sunrise. But if they hadn't stopped the ritual by then, it'd probably be too late anyway.

Deep in thought, Steve followed Tony and Natasha back to the mansion, again traversing long dark stretches of tunnels. Although he was very good at memorizing routes, he wasn't entirely sure he would've found his way back on his own. This was not a familiar environment for him; he was used to open skies and nature, to the endless forests and meadows of Arcadia, and now to a lesser extent to the streets of modern New York. Not to concrete corridors where he could barely see the floor, the pale glow of Tony's arclight not quite enough to reach all corners of the space around them.

Natasha grew visibly more wary and restless as they climbed up a ladder and popped out of the manhole cover in front of the gate to Tony's home. Her behaviour was a reminder that there might be changelings and Fae out there looking for them. Even so, Steve was relieved to be out of the gloomy passages and back among the neon lights of the city that didn't grow quiet even in the middle of the night.

They were able to slip into the mansion without running into anyone, and like before, in spite of his growing resentment towards Tony, the thick walls and invisible magical wards of the place still gave him that same sense of safety and protection that he'd felt before.

Maybe, if he somehow got a place of his own after this mess, if they somehow survived tonight, Tony could still help him set up wards for his new apartment—but Steve didn't really believe any of that was possible. He thought it was far more likely that he'd die in this battle than go back to something resembling normal life. The third alternative was becoming enslaved by the Fae again, and he was not going to let that happen.

Tony handed Steve and Natasha over to Jarvis as soon as they were inside, and disappeared downstairs to start his hunt for Bruce, dismissing Natasha's offer to help.

"I work best alone," he said over his shoulder. "I thought you'd figured that out by now."

With nothing else to do, Steve and Natasha settled in Tony's living room to discuss possible strategies. They were working on far too little information, but a plan based on educated guesses was better than no plan at all.

"The ritual site will most likely be some important landmark, a monument or a prominent feature of some sort," Natasha began thoughtfully.

"There's no shortage of those in Central Park," Steve noted. "And it's a big area to search on foot."

"Well, unless you know someone who can fly, that's what we'll need to do anyway. What should help a bit is that I'd expect the heaviest resistance to be closest to the site," Natasha said. "Unless Loki gets his portal open, we'll mostly be facing what forces the Red Fae brings to the fray. Anything you can say about them?"

"You saw them when you rescued me," Steve replied. "The changelings have got a wide variety of magical skills, both defensive and offensive. The Red Fae himself, he's the most formidable of them all. The Fae are—they're like the oldest and most powerful of your vampire elders, they're almost beyond what you can imagine." Steve hated the frightened edge that was creeping into his voice, but he couldn't deny that he was afraid of facing his Master again. "If he’s brought other Fae with him, our chances are extremely slim. Luckily that's unlikely. From what I've understood, most of them like having a balance between worlds and staying hidden from humans. I don't think they'd choose to work with him."

"Let's assume he'll be our most challenging foe, then, in addition to Loki himself," Natasha said. "Do you have weapons suited for fighting them? I know cold iron is supposed to hurt the Fae. The Covenant's armoury was taken over with the rest of the compound, but we have other caches. I could arrange for something."

Steve knew that iron the material of choice for weapons against the Fae. He'd been taught it was a thing to be avoided, something that should never be allowed in the house of his Master. It would've made sense for him to arm himself with an iron blade. As a changeling, his aversion to the material was a learned thing, and handling it wouldn't cause him any discomfort like it would for the Fae. But that wasn't how he fought. He'd never, in all his years, used weapons of any kind.

"I don't, but I'm good, I don't need anything," Steve said. "And when we find the Red Fae, I want the rest of you out of my way. Leave him to me."

**********

Bruce was more challenging to locate than most since he was a recluse who preferred a life that left no electronic trace. He'd had a phone in Paris, but that must've been a burner, because Tony couldn't reach the number anymore. He didn't seem to use credit cards, either.

With his tech approaches coming up short, Tony tried with magic. This came with the slight risk of being caught by Loki and his allies, but times were desperate. They really, really needed all the help they could get. He still came through empty-handed; not surprising, as Bruce knew how to set up pretty mean wards.

Luckily, Tony had one ace up his sleeve: he could combine the two approaches into a unique tracing spell that spread through the power grid, looking for any hint of Bruce's particular brand of magic. That finally helped him pinpoint the elusive shifter. Even more luckily, Bruce hadn't fled town entirely, but was bunking at a budget hotel in Hell's Kitchen, and Tony was able to get him on the line with a little help from the front desk.

"Who's this?" Bruce replied warily.

"A guy in a gold suit. Hi," Tony greeted him.

"How the Hell did you—" Bruce started, then stopped abruptly. "No, wait, I don't care. I don't want to talk to you. I'm done dealing with Fury and everyone around him. Bye."

"No, no, no, wait, don't hang up!" Tony said urgently. He'd have preferred not going into detail over an unsecure line, but he really needed to sort this out now. "I don't want to deal with them either, but right now, that's necessary. The Covenant was attacked. A coalition of Loki and the Fae. They're putting up some big ritual, and by big I mean global disaster level big. We have to stop it. We need everyone there. We need you."

Bruce's sigh was easily audible, and Tony could visualize his resigned look and the way his shoulders slumped. "Global disaster. Right. I guess I'll head over there, then."

"Just this one mission," Tony said. "Then we can all wash our hands from the schemes of the fanged folk."

"It's never just one mission," Bruce said wearily. "Okay. Where do we meet?"

Tony was pretty pleased with how he'd handled that. Much easier than he'd expected, really, but then again, he knew Bruce had much higher moral standards than most people in these circles.

Although he wasn't all that excited about hanging around with Steve, it was kind of necessary at the moment. So, he joined the other two in planning and waiting for Bruce, and news. An hour later, they got a call from Coulson, who confirmed they'd gotten word out to Thor that Loki was moving on with his plans and they could expect him to show up at the Park. Coulson himself, together with the few other Covenant ghouls who Fury had managed to contact, would be waiting by the Park, ready to join in once they had an idea of where the ritual site was.

When Bruce showed up at the door, dawn was around two hours away, and they were about as ready as they could possibly be for this encounter. Which honestly wasn't very ready at all, but they didn't have much to go on. They'd just have to play this by the ear. Good thing that was something Tony did a lot, and Steve seemed to be adept at it too, based on everything Tony had seen of him.

**********

Steve and Natasha in their costumes, Tony in his armor, and Bruce in his scruffy civilian clothes, the team of four stepped out of Tony's home onto 5th Avenue. Across the street, the trees of Central Park were dark and uninviting in the pre-sunrise hours.

Steve was almost embarrassed to admit how much this creeped him out. He shuddered. During the day, the park might be a soothing environment to spend time in, but in the dark, it was a very Fae kind of place: a late fall forest at night, some colourful leaves still clinging to the mostly skeletal branches, fluttering in the biting wind. Once they ventured deeper, they would find statues, fountains and lakes; exactly the kinds of places that could be natural crossing points between realms.

They might be about to walk right into the arms of an awaiting army of changelings. The street separating the safe, welcoming walls of Tony's mansion from the sinister park was like a no-man's land in a war, the sharp line between homeland and enemy territory.

For now, everything around them was quiet. The calm before the storm, Steve thought.

They had decided to split up into pairs. While sticking together would've been preferable and less risky, they had a tight schedule and a lot of ground to cover. It would've been nice to have more time, but since the ritual was supposed to be at dawn, if they'd started looking for Loki too early, they'd probably have found nothing. It might also have made sense to pair each magic user with someone who was good at close combat, but they did the opposite. Steve and Natasha could move faster than Bruce or Tony, so they'd go with a slower and a faster pair. The former would start searching the area closer to the Mansion while the latter rushed at their top speed to the north end of the Park and began their search there. Whoever located the enemies first would then inform the others, and they'd regroup as rapidly as possible.

They would try to limit their use of magic and other supernatural skills to the minimum. They didn't want to draw attention to themselves any sooner than was necessary. Of course, it was quite possible that Loki already knew they were coming—the Fae had eyes and ears everywhere, and Zola or Selvig could've sold them out—but that couldn't be helped.

In addition to not knowing nearly enough about the enemy force, they also had a friendly wild card they hadn't really been able to figure into their plans: Thor. They had no idea where the thunder god was, or what he was up to. The only thing they knew for sure was that Thor wouldn't want to miss this chance to capture his errant brother. Whether he'd be up for teamwork was anyone's guess.

"Good luck," Steve called out after the other pair as they parted ways.

"Same," Tony said curtly, over his shoulder.

Steve remembered how their eyes had met for the first time, when the Covenant had rescued him, and how different that had felt. Like they'd connected somehow. Like they understood one another, although they didn't even know one another. How wrong he'd been.

As he sprinted along the outside wall of the Park next to Natasha, who disappeared into the shadows so completely that he could barely tell where she was, Steve wondered if those would turn out to be the last words he'd ever exchange with Tony. After all, there was no telling what would happen today.

In a way, it was for the better that he'd learned the truth about Tony before this. At least now he'd go into the fray feeling like he had nothing left to lose. 

Nothing but his freedom.


	9. Nine Lives

Sneaking around Central Park as if it were some kind of a war zone sounded ridiculous as a concept, but when doing it in the small hours, in gloomy, slightly damp late autumn weather, Tony didn't really find it funny. It was something of a liminal space, like a museum at the dead of night or a mall after closing hours. All the features that would've looked familiar during the day seemed uninviting, somehow misshapen and wrong. There were no noisy children on their way to the zoo, and the quiet Wollman Rink was still waiting for its cover of ice and the first skaters of the season.

Tony could easily imagine countless changeling eyes spying them from the bushes, from behind statues and abandoned playgrounds, but if they were there, they were too well hidden for him to spot them.

Splitting the team the way they'd done it made sense for covering the most ground, and Tony was glad to be paired with someone who wasn't Steve, but there were significant disadvantages to this arrangement. Both Steve and Natasha were better than regular humans at sensing hidden supernatural things. Tony was probably worse than a regular human, if he didn't actively use magic for it. Bruce wasn't much better than Tony was while he remained in human form, and the plan was for him to try and hold on to it for as long as he could.

The moment they heard rustling from a thicket close to the path, Tony leaped at it, only to find himself facing a startled rat. Figuring it might be a shapeshifter or one of Loki's illusions, he caught it. They spent a fair amount of time convincing themselves that it really was just a rat, after which they decided that it had been a waste of time, and that maybe they should give the next random animal a pass if it didn't seem particularly suspicious.

Sneaking around parks and interrogating rats. This wasn't quite how Tony had expected saving the world to look like.

"If I were picking a ritual site in the vicinity," Bruce whispered a little later, "the Bethesda Terrace would be on my shortlist."

"Agreed. Better keep our eyes peeled for something more exciting than a stray pigeon," Tony said.

Obvious landmarks, crossroads and places with water were all traditional focal points that could be used for any kind of a ritual. The Terrace matched all of these, and was often called the heart of the park. It would be a good location for focusing magical energy.

For what little good it might do, they tried to stick close to the ornate stone balustrades and step as noiselessly as they could as they made their way down the stairs to the open square in front of the fountain. There were countless possible hiding places all around, but they couldn't see or hear anything, not a single sign of life, until a voice, low but deep, called out to them from the darkness.

"Halt! Who goes there?"

Tony had heard that voice before; with the old-timey accent, it was unmistakeable.

"Don't shoot, we're friends," Tony replied quickly. "And on a shared quest, too."

Thor stepped into sight from behind a stone pillar to their right, his features easily recognizable in the dim light from the streetlamps surrounding the area. He'd ditched the lab coat, but he looked no less odd, wearing ordinary jeans and a hoodie while holding what appeared to be a massive war hammer. It shimmered ever so slightly in the dark, and Tony wondered whether it was tangible or some kind of a projection.

"Where is my brother? I was told he would be in this park," Thor demanded, still keeping his voice softer than usual in what must be his best attempt at stealth.

"That's what we're trying to find out," Bruce replied.

"It's a big park, lots of places where he might be hiding," Tony added. It occurred to him that as much as this seemed like Thor, it could still be someone posing as him instead of the real deal. He tried to come up with a suitable question to verify his identity. "Humor me, blondie, and tell me what Prince Fury said to us after Paris, once we got back here."

"What has this to do with anything?" Thor frowned. "If memory serves, he asked us to get out of his sight."

"Close enough for me," Tony said, casting a glance at Bruce.

Bruce nodded. "Sounds about right. Just making sure you're really you," he explained to Thor.

"I am Thor, Son of Odin! This I swear to you by the Nine Realms," Thor announced, the volume of his voice slipping to a range far removed from stealthy with his growing annoyance.

"We're facing beings capable of all kinds of mind games," Tony pointed out. "Can't be too careful. So, I take it that you don't have any special way of tracking your beloved sibling, then?"

"I have tried every magic I know of, but he is hidden from me. It could be because of the vampire's body he inhabits," Thor said, his voice softer again, but still looking sour.

"We'll just have to stick to the eyeballing approach, then," Tony said.

"At least we'll have one more pair of eyes. If you're willing to join forces with us, that is," Bruce said.

"Of course! But are there only two of you?" Thor asked, looking around as if expecting more people to step out of the shadows.

"Widow and Nomad are combing through the northern end of the park," Tony told him. He decided to leave out the fact that Coulson would hopefully be on standby with backup. He was fairly convinced this really was Thor, but that was no guarantee.

They took a few minutes to make sure the area around the Terrace was clear before continuing on their way, advancing towards the north. Considering his size, Thor moved very quietly, and Tony guessed he'd be better at noticing hidden enemies, so it was a stroke of luck they'd come across him.

Indeed, if not for Thor, they might've been taken at unawares by the attack, which came not long after they'd passed the looming dark windows of the Loeb Boathouse.

"Show yourself!" Thor yelled at a seemingly quiet clump of trees, and pushed Tony and Bruce back, his hammer held in front.

With no sound beyond a whisper of leaves and a creak of branches, one of the trees stepped towards them, its roots turning into tentacle-like limbs. Its branches reached out, their tips stretching out into sharp spikes, like huge, overgrown thorns. The Ents had nothing on this monstrous changeling tree.

Thor didn't wait for the enemy to take a pass at him, but launched himself at it, swinging his hammer in a wide arc. Tony decided the time for stealth was past, and aimed one of his energy blasts at the tree's higher branches, making sure to stay clear of Thor.

Several more enemies promptly appeared to join the fight: two more that seemed like changelings, sporting claws and horns, but there was also a bearded man whose biker outfit reminded Tony of the Loki cultists they'd run into earlier, and two people in Covenant jumpsuits. These two were very obviously not friendly, but there was no telling whether they were under mind control or had switched sides willingly.

Tony considered telling the others to try not to hurt the Covenant people too badly, but with Thor shouting battle cries and Bruce on all fours, spouting hair, halfway to bear form, he'd just be wasting his breath.

Instead, he called out on the radio. "Nomad, Widow, we've hit heavy resistance. We're—" he paused to parry a branch lashing out at him and to take a quick look around. After the Boathouse, the next notable landmark would be Belvedere Castle. He was willing to bet good money that it'd turn out to be Loki's selected site. It was certainly a prominent feature, the sort of place someone with a penchant for dramatics might pick.

"What's that, Avenger? Where are you?" Natasha asked.

"We're not far from Belvedere Castle," Tony finished his sentence. "I'd say there's a good chance that's where we all want to be. So, unless you've found something really interesting where you currently are, get yourselves over there."

**********

Steve's nerves were bowstring-taut, prepared to leap at the slightest hint of an enemy, but the park around him and Natasha remained quiet as they jogged through it, stopping for a closer look whenever they passed any kind of a landmark.

He was glad he didn't have to do this alone. Having Natasha around, at home in the dark and level-headed as ever, was soothing. He could tell, though, that she was slightly worried of how close to dawn they were. Probably not for herself, since she could get to the nearest manhole cover and the safety of underground passages in a matter of minutes, but for Clint, who was at Loki's mercy.

The eeriest part of their search so far had been the Conservatory Garden. Hedges and wilting remnants of what had been beautiful flowers made for an environment that just screamed Fae to Steve. But they had found nothing there, not so much as a sleeping bum on a bench. Steve was almost hoping they'd run into someone; with all this pent-up tension, he would welcome the chance to fall into the familiar combat mindset where there was nothing but the struggle to survive from one moment to the next.

They were making their way around the wide expanse of water of the Reservoir when Tony's voice rang through their earpieces, his sentences clipped, his tone urgent. The background noises of battle made the severity of the situation even more obvious.

"We're on our way," Steve acknowledged.

With no need for further discussion, he and Natasha switched from jogging to running at top speed, heading towards the south.

They ran into the first foes before they'd caught sight of the others or their goal: a team of two changelings that were clearly a perimeter patrol. Steve and Natasha pushed past them with brute force and speed, their objective to get to the Castle that was the most likely ritual site as fast as possible.

On the radio, Tony was calling out for reinforcements from Coulson, who replied that it would take them approximately ten minutes to reach the site.

As Steve and Natasha got closer to their target, they began to spot the occasional flash of blue light in the distance—Tony's magic, Steve thought, trying not to linger on the memory of seeing him glow with it during his unexpected rescue at the restaurant—and to hear the clamor of battle. They picked up speed, now moving faster than any regular human. Natasha was starting to fall behind Steve, but he didn't plan on waiting up for her.

Once he got within view of the Castle, Steve ran into so many enemies that he had no choice but to stop and fight. He found himself facing a familiar man with claws and scales, the very one who'd been stalking him through the streets of New York, and a woman with vines instead of hair.

Even as he fought off the foes, Steve tried to make sense of the general situation around him. The miniature castle was bathed in sinister, pale green light, the source of which seemed to be an orb floating just above the top of the highest tower. On the observation deck below it Steve could just see a lone figure: Clint, undoubtedly still possessed by Loki. Thor and Tony were on a mid-level platform, above Steve but below Loki, facing at least ten enemies. Steve couldn't see Bruce, but going by the low growling and the occasional shriek he heard from somewhere below, the shapeshifter was in bear form and terrorizing enemies on the cliffs by the pond. He could imagine that without Bruce, he might currently be facing twice as many enemies.

Steve managed to knock out one of the changelings with a sharp kick, and hurried ahead to join his two friends. Though he'd lost sight of Natasha earlier, he suddenly found her standing by his side again.

The stairs leading up to the middle level were blocked by several men, but Natasha nodded towards the wall in front of them instead. "Think you can make it?" she shouted at him while easily holding back three Loki cultists.

It was barely twenty feet up. "Easily," Steve returned. He pushed aside a woman in Covenant garb and accelerated towards the rampart to take a flying leap.

Seconds after him, Natasha jumped as well. They both reached the top effortlessly, coming to hang from the edge of the mid-level parapet.

Steve had just about pulled himself over the edge when he had to fall back, holding on with one hand, to dodge an enemy that came flying over it. He heard her land with a heavy thud on the pavement below as he finally made his way up, only to find the platform much quieter than just a few minutes ago. There were several enemies slumped by the walls, and in the middle stood Tony, Thor and Natasha, with their heads tilted up towards the upper deck.

"Brother!" Thor called out, one hand raising a glowing battlehammer towards the skies. "Cease your evil magic and face me! Your time is up!"

To Steve's surprise, Loki did as Thor commanded, abandoning his ritual arrangements to leap down and face them. He landed gracefully in front of the team, as if to showcase the formidable combination of Clint's vampire abilities and his own powers. He was still wearing the Covenant jumpsuit Clint had worn during their mission in Paris, with a few burn marks here and there from that encounter. As before, Steve saw Loki's ethereal, shimmering figure superposed with Clint's: a much taller, thinner man, regal-looking with a horned helmet. The only tangible detail that differed from Clint's usual appearance, probably the only one the others would be able to see, was the deep emerald green hue of his eyes. They seemed luminescent, though that might've just been the reflection from the magical light above.

"So, it's you again," Loki said, sounding exasperated. "You do realize you won't achieve anything with this? You're surrounded and outnumbered a dozen times over."

Loki was right; the lower observation deck that they now stood on was mostly clear of enemies, but several new ones had emerged at the top of the stairs, and there were more than Steve cared to count on the courtyard below. He realized that he could see more detail than he'd caught earlier: the first hint of sunlight had emerged on the horizon, providing him a better view of the distorted features of the many changelings, the variety of odd styles sported by Loki's followers, and the blank, lifeless looks on the faces of mind-controlled Covenant ghouls and humans.

They'd all focused on reaching Loki as fast as they could, hurrying through the mass of enemies, not caring if they were being pursued. They wouldn't have much hope if they had to face all of these enemies—but if they could stop Loki, here and now, they wouldn't need to.

"Your army's down there, we're up here," Tony said, blue fire dancing on his palm. "It'll take a lot longer for them to get at us than it'll take for me to blow your brains out."

Loki spread his arms, Clint's features twisting into mock horror. "Oh, but surely you wouldn't do that to your dear friend and teammate!"

He was right. Steve might not know Tony as well as he'd thought he did, but he was sure Tony wouldn't want to blast Clint in the face, point-blank. Natasha had repeatedly mentioned that they needed to save Clint, to get him out of here before sunrise. Of course they wouldn't want to hurt him, and Loki was clever enough to use that to his advantage.

"The only way for you to get him back in one piece is to let me finish what I'm doing," Loki went on. "Another five minutes or so. I'll hand him over with just enough time that you can run and hide under a rock before this body goes up in flames."

"You really think we'll fall for that?" Natasha said. "You think we're worried about him getting hurt? Just watch me."

In one fluid move, she pulled a wooden stake from her belt and drove it into Clint's chest.

Steve couldn't contain his shocked gasp—he had been suspicious of everyone, and mistrusting of the Covenant, but he'd thought he understood Natasha, he'd thought she and Clint were at least close colleagues, maybe even friends. Clearly, he'd been wrong about everything.

How could she have done that to him?

**********

Tony had been prepared to take the shot, even if he had no idea how badly one of his blasts would've injured the vampire. Clint wasn't his favorite person in the universe, but he wasn't sorry for not needing to find out. He was also surprised that Natasha had been the one to do it instead. He had known she was ruthless, but he never would've guessed she might actually go and stake Clint.

Loki clearly hadn't expected that either. His green, glowy eyes went wide in horror, his mouth falling open, and then the unnatural gleam faded, leaving Clint looking entirely like himself, his face frozen in a shocked grimace. Loki must've escaped his body. It wouldn't be much use for him now, paralyzed as it was.

Since the unearthly green eyes didn't make a reappearance on any of the faces around him, Tony assumed Loki hadn't switched bodies to any of his teammates. None of them would've made for good hosts anyway: Tony knew Loki wasn't very fond of his reanimated body, and he suspected Steve might immune to possession. The body Thor was currently in was kind of occupied already. That left Natasha, who might be a potential target, since Loki had been able to take over Clint, but considering her murderous attitude, Tony sure wouldn't have tried his luck with her, had he been in Loki's position.

Clint pitched forwards, and Natasha held her arms open to grab hold of him before he hit the floor. She hoisted his unmoving body over her shoulder, and said, "I'm going to need you to clear us a way out of here. We don't have long."

They really didn't; the darkness was starting to give way to twilight. If the vampires didn't get indoors very soon, they'd suffer a lethal case of sunburn.

Steve seemed to be just gaping at Natasha and Clint, frozen in place, almost as if he'd been the one who'd gotten staked. Tony had supposed Steve was up to date on how vampirism worked when it came to the classic clichés, but maybe not?

"Nomad," Tony called out, moving to stand next to him, but suppressing the urge to place a hand on his shoulder. "Hey. Steve. You realize he's not actually dead, right? I mean, aside from the fact that he was undead to begin with?"

Steve finally shifted his gaze from the two vampires to look at Tony, his eyes wide and confused behind his mask. "He's not?"

"I thought Coulson briefed you on this stuff. He'll be incapacitated as long as that stake's in, and I've heard it's really, really uncomfortable, but he'll be fine. Assuming we get them out of here before the sun's up," Tony explained.

"Oh," Steve said. So, he hadn't known. Poor guy, no wonder he'd looked so rattled. At least Tony's words seemed to pull him out of his fugue. Steve took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. "Okay. Right. Let's move on. We get these two out of here, and then we need to find Loki again."

In coordinated movements that made them look suspiciously like an actual team, they leaped down from the platform: Steve and Thor at the front landing gracefully, Tony behind them, doing his best to match—his armor had a good range of mobility and allowed him to take the fall easily, but it was still clumsier than a god and a changeling. Natasha followed just on his heel, Clint draped over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing at all.

Steve and Thor started punching them a path through the enemy army. By now, it could definitely be called one. There were too many foes to count, some more human, others less so, and it wasn't always evident on the surface which type one happened to be facing. Some of the changelings looked perfectly ordinary until they blasted some mind-boggling cloud of magic at you.

Tony stayed a few steps behind the two brawlers, targeting enemies at their sides. It was a desperate battle, one that they really had no way of winning. They weren't fighting with any kind of a proper plan, either. It was just like earlier: they were just trying to rush through the mass of enemies as fast as they could, because if they wanted the vampires to see the next night, they didn't have much choice.

So, all they needed to do was to get the vampires to safety, stop Loki before all of Jotunheim descended on them, and somehow survive. Or not. He didn't really care anymore. What with everything that had gone down between him and Steve, he'd proven to himself once again, conclusively, that there was no hope and no happiness to be found in his existence. If he'd need to give up said existence to save the world, he might as well.

The battle formation they'd started with didn't last for many minutes: Thor got drawn to one side by a particularly big changeling who looked like a troll, and Steve veered to the left after some target that Tony couldn't see.

Tony kept blasting energy this way and that, feeling his magical reserves slowly dwindling. He knew he couldn't keep this up forever.

He had to turn around to fend an attack from behind—someone trying to shoot at him with a pistol, what a pointless exercise—and as he did, he realized Natasha was nowhere to be seen anymore. He'd just have to hope she and Clint had gotten away, because there was nothing more he could do for them.

Step one had been to get the vampires out. Step two was to find Loki again, and to put an end to his plans. Those plans meant that Loki would want to get back to the observation deck where he'd been setting up his ritual.

Tony raised his eyes towards the tower, and sure enough, there was a tall figure on the top observation deck again, its arms spread in what looked all too much like an incantation. Was he too late already?

Though he knew he'd regret wasting his magic on broad, sweeping strikes if this fight lasted much longer, time was of the essence. He shaped his energy into a wide stunning blast that sent a majority of the foes between him and the tower stumbling backwards or swaying on their feet, looking confused.

He should've thought of doing that for Natasha. Then again, Thor and Steve had been blocking the way.

Hurrying back towards the Castle, using the opening he'd made for himself, he saw that Thor was several steps ahead of him. As he watched, the god appeared on the top observation deck and grabbed his brother in an armlock. It made for an impressive scene, looking from below: two tall men silhouetted by the early morning sun.

If Thor could hold Loki back for long enough, Tony should be able to put a stop to that ritual, for once and for all.

He weighed his options. He could either waste even more magical energy on propelling himself up to the highest deck, circumventing the guarded stairs, or fight his way through them, like he and Thor had done earlier.

Tony couldn't exactly fly, but he could do sustained jumps that kind of seemed like magical levitation. They also tended to be quite draining—but again, that wasn't important. His remaining goal was up there. If he had nothing left afterwards, so be it.

He spread his arms and jumped, letting his magic carry him upwards as if he'd suddenly turned weightless, leaving his enemies below.

He touched lightly on the lower deck's parapet with his feet, just enough to push himself off it, and easily made it to the upper deck. Well, easily aside from the woozy feeling of nearing the limits of his endurance. He could feel the stitches around his neck, like a tightening collar cutting into his skin, an itch he had no hope of scratching through his armor.

On the observation deck, Thor was holding Loki half over the parapet, with Loki struggling and squirming like a hooked fish. The body he was occupying now looked very different from Clint: a tall, slim man with shoulder-length dark hair, dressed in black. There were green runes sown into his jacket, making Tony wonder if Loki had had this spare body selected in advance from among his followers.

On the floor, in a circle that went around the small platform, were more runes, glowing a greenish blue. Loki had started his ritual, but it wasn't finished. The portal wasn't open yet. Tony needed to take this thing apart without making it worse. Too bad Norse magic still wasn't his strongest suit.

Tony glanced at the fight below. There was no sign of Bruce, and not much hope of getting him here. He could see Steve, though. He was locked in such fierce combat, even other enemies seemed to be giving him and his opponent a wide berth.

He hoped Steve would be okay. The odds were stacked against him, like they were for all of them.

Tony looked at the runes again, and racked his brain for the correct one to start from. This wasn't too different from defusing a bomb, right? He could do this.

**********

After they lost sight of Thor and Tony, Steve and Natasha pushed on side by side, somehow managing to keep going. It felt like it took them an hour just to cross the courtyard to the stairs, which took them to the road leading away, towards the south. It couldn't have been that long, though, because the sun wasn't visible yet. Even so, Steve could see that it was starting to have an effect on Natasha. Where she'd been carrying Clint effortlessly at first, now she'd slowed down, and her steps seemed to falter every now and then. Vampires weren't meant to be around so close to sunrise.

He watched her disappear between the trees, to hide from their enemies and from the sun. If she could keep up her usual speed, it shouldn't take her much longer than five minutes to reach Central Park West and the safety of the tunnels beneath. All he could do for her now was hope for the best.

Had Steve wanted to get out of this in one piece himself, his best bet would've been to make a run for it. He was at the edge of the active battlefield, and he was fairly sure he could get away if he tried. But he had made up his mind. He would see this through, to the bitter end.

He turned his back to the walkway leading to safety, and swung his fist at the insect-like changeling with disturbing compound eyes who'd tried to sneak up on him.

Considering that Steve had no particular magic at his disposal, only his speed, strength, and a knack for strategy that helped him see the weak points in his enemies' defenses, he felt he'd done quite well so far. He'd taken many hits, of course, and gained a number of bruises and abrasions, but none of them were serious enough to slow him down. Of course, since his team's goals in this battle had so far mostly involved getting from one place to the other as fast as possible, the same was true for their enemies; only a few had been incapacitated. There were nearly as many still left standing as there had been when Steve had reached the area. As for the reinforcements that the Covenant had sent, Steve only saw a handful of them in the skirmish. Not enough to make a difference.

He was scanning the enemy forces, looking for any sign of Loki, when an all too familiar voice called out for him, making his blood turn to ice in his veins. Somehow, it sounded barely louder than a whisper, and yet every word was as clear as if they'd been spoken right next to his ear, each hissing consonant and dangerously growled vowel distinct.

"Steve Rogers," the voice said. "We meet again."

As much as Steve had grown used to his freedom, he was still struck with an instant compulsion to stand still and bow his head. He resisted it. He was free. He wasn't afraid. There might be no place for him in this world, but he wasn't going back to Arcadia. Ever.

The enemies who'd blocked his view parted to the sides, leaving an empty stretch of flagstones, and at the other end of it, some twelve feet from Steve, stood the Red Fae. He was there in the flesh, Steve was sure of it. He looked tangible, without the telltale haziness of an illusion or a projection, his skeletal features sharp in the early morning light, the wide sleeves of his dark tunic billowing in the wind.

Steve raised his hands in front of him, fists tightly clenched, though it felt as if he were pointing a peashooter at a tank. Fighting changelings was one thing; it was what he'd been doing for decades, after all. But fighting the Fae—he'd thought of attacking his Master, many times, but the Fae were so vastly more powerful than humans that he'd always thought he wouldn't stand a chance. He'd thought that fighting the Red Fae would be a suicide mission.

He wasn't afraid anymore. Whatever happened, he would stand his ground.

Steve faced his former Master defiantly, his head held high. "I'm not going back," he said. "I'm free. I will never serve you again."

"You're right, you won't. I wouldn't take you back if you wanted to return," the Red Fae replied, the thin line of his mouth twisting into a cruel grin. "You're far too much trouble. You're useless to me, and there is no point to your existence anymore. I've had enough of you. Your story will end here, today."

That wasn't what Steve had expected to hear. He knew the Red Fae was very possessive of his slaves, and didn't give them up easily. Could it really be that Steve had caused enough inconvenience to him that he'd want to kill Steve? Did that mean that Zola really, truly had decided to defect? Was the Fae worried that Steve would corrupt more of his underlings if he remained free? Or was he just trying to intimidate Steve?

Whatever he was getting at, it didn't change things. "You're right. One way or the other, it will," Steve returned, refusing to show any hesitation.

Around them, the many changelings who were part of the battle had formed a circle, making room for the two combatants. It felt like he was back in the fighting pits of Arcadia again, for one final battle.

He had no clue where the remaining members of his team were, but he could only hope that Thor and Tony were trying to put a stop to Loki's plans. For Steve, this was where he needed to be. This was the moment that his entire life had been leading up to.

He knew his enemy had the upper hand in this battle, and he wasn't going to sit around waiting for the first move. Instead, he charged, aiming to punch the Fae in the face if he could manage it. He'd wanted to do that for so many years. He didn't expect his enemy to let him, though, and he was prepared when the Fae tried to sidestep. Steve hooked a foot behind his foe's ankle, trying to throw him off-balance, and managed to land a fist on the Fae's cheek.

The feeling of his knuckles connecting with that sharp cheekbone had to be one of the most satisfying things he'd ever experienced.

His satisfaction was short-lived, of course, since the Red Fae's retaliation was instantaneous and fierce. He swung his fist at Steve. It hit the side of his face, followed by a wave of magic that seemed to radiate searing heat from the contact point, as if he'd been struck with molten lava that was spreading through his body.

Steve staggered backwards, struggling not to give in to the pain and the need to curl up and fall down on his knees.

He knew the torment was mostly in his mind. That was how his Master's magic tended to work. It rarely caused physical damage, it was the agony itself that was incapacitating.

He grit his teeth and held his ground. "You'll need to do a lot worse than this to actually kill me," he spat out.

"We're barely getting started," the Fae returned. "I will have you begging for mercy long before I end your pitiful life."

"Never," Steve said.

He stood up straight again, and launched a series of punches and kicks at the Fae, trying his best not to give his enemy a proper opening to strike back. The Fae seemed genuinely surprised by the ferocity of Steve's assault, and Steve got a few hits in. But all it took was one tiny mistake, one slip-up, and the Fae sidestepped, kicked at Steve's knees, and suddenly all the strength and feeling disappeared from his left leg. He lost his footing, landing on his unaffected knee.

The Fae was breathing hard, his lip split from where Steve had punched him, but otherwise he seemed unharmed as he towered over Steve.

The Fae was toying with him, Steve realized. Like a cat with his prey.

There was an all too familiar contemptuous grin on the Fae's face. "I remember why I used to like you so much. So tenacious. Very entertaining."

"Mock me all you will, hurt me all you can, but you will never make me beg," Steve hissed back at him.

If he couldn't win, at least he was going to lose with dignity.

Trying to force his brain to believe that there was actually nothing wrong with his leg, he gingerly stood up again, testing it. He was rewarded with an intense feeling of pins and needles, but at least his foot seemed to hold his weight.

He aimed a blow at the Fae's midriff, felt it hit home, and avoided the return blow by dropping to the ground instantly. His next move, a kick he sent at the Fae's shin with his bad leg, missed. As he rolled away, staying low, the Fae struck back, a heavy blow that flattened him to the ground, knocking the wind out of him. It felt as if a ton of bricks had fallen on his back; as if someone had suddenly changed gravity around him and made everything too heavy.

Since he'd been facing away from his enemy, Steve wasn't sure if the hit had been physical or purely magical. No matter his determination to resist, for a moment, all he could do was lay on the ground, face down, gasping, trying to find his breath again.

He rolled onto his side, coughing to clear his throat, and spat on the ground. It left a red stain, bright against the pale gray stone.

This wasn't imaginary pain. He was injured, and he didn't think it was just a bleeding cut on the inside of his cheek. Every breath hurt like someone was stabbing him between the ribs.

As he struggled to pull himself together, something cold was pressed into his hand.

He looked up to see Coulson crouched among the crowd. The ghoul didn't stand out at all since many of the enemies also wore Covenant uniforms. "You can do it," Coulson mouthed at him, his fingers briefly brushing Steve's as he closed Steve's hand around the hilt of a dagger.

He'd handed Steve an iron dagger. An old one, and probably hand-forged, by the looks of it—one that made Steve feel instantly uncomfortable, because during his years in Arcadia, he'd been taught to abhor things that could hurt his Master. Things just like this.

Steve didn't use weapons. That wasn't how he fought. He'd declined Natasha's offer earlier, but he wasn't going to decline this. It was his last chance, and he was going to take it.

He got up onto his knees, the dagger held close to his side to keep it out of sight.

"This is starting to try my patience," the Red Fae said, appearing in Steve's field of vision again. "Time to end it. You will not be missed, slave." He raised a hand to fling whatever deadly magic he had in store towards Steve.

Steve pushed himself to his feet and half lunged, half fell towards his enemy. He felt the dagger sink into the Fae's throat, under his chin, blade angled up, until it was buried to the hilt.

That had to be enough. The Red Fae would never torment anyone again.

The last thing Steve heard was his former Master's ear-splitting screech of pain. Then the magic hit him, and the world faded away.

**********

Tony had got this.

He'd taken out two of the runes, carefully erasing parts of them with the tip of one metal-covered finger, focusing on keeping his own magic in the background. That was sometimes an issue when dealing with foreign spells, but less so now that he was running low anyway.

He'd taken out those runes, and the rest had blinked out, the heat-haze-like shimmer that had hinted at the half-formed portal had dissolving.

He stepped away, standing up straight to admire his handiwork.

Without warning, the world exploded around him.

An intense flash of light from where Thor and Loki had been locked in combat nearly blinded him, and a fraction of a second after it, a magical pressure wave knocked him off his feet. The force of it was enough to send him toppling over the parapet, like one of the autumn leaves caught in a gust of wind.

He managed to push against the stone to direct his fall so that he ended up tumbling to the lower observation deck instead of all the way down. The landing still wasn't graceful; he fell on his back with a clang, and was fairly sure the back of his armor was impressively dented for it. Added to the weariness of too much magic spent in too little time, it didn't help how he felt, either.

He was going to be one huge bruise after this. On the other hand, he thought as he stared at the cloudy morning sky above, it seemed like there actually might be an 'after this'. How about that. It was a lot more than he'd been expecting.

The sounds of battle seemed to have stopped all around him. He kind of just wanted to stay where he was, but he needed to know what'd happened to the others. He flopped onto his side, crawled to the wall by the stairs, and leaned on it to get back to his feet.

Climbing up the stairs to the highest deck felt like conquering K2, but eventually, he got there to witness a perfectly quiet scene. The ground was scorched black where the runes had been burning. To the side of the circle, in one tangle of limbs, rested the bodies Loki and Thor had occupied. Tony hobbled over to pull them apart. Both men were breathing, but completely out of it. Considering that light show, Tony was willing to bet the godly visitors had gone home to Asgard, and these two unfortunate humans would eventually wake up, back to their regular selves but extremely confused. There was also a chance that the body Loki had been possessing was someone who'd been specifically picked for the part, one of the cultists, and would give trouble once he regained consciousness.

The best thing to do would be to keep watch over this duo of sleeping beauties until they woke up. Tony would prefer not being the one to do that, since he generally wasn't big on babysitting, whether talking about actual babies or about clueless regular humans.

Tony stood up again to take a look at the courtyard below, and his eyes landed on a sight that made him forget about everything else, about guarding unconscious host bodies and about how literally rotten he was feeling and how nearly they'd averted a major supernatural disaster today.

The battle had ceased all around, and most of the enemies seemed to have fled. The ones that remained were all on the ground, either dead or unconscious. And among the fallen, at the far side of the square, was an unmoving figure that, with the ludicrous neckline, could only be Nomad. There was another person by his side, on his knees, wearing black. Tony couldn't tell from this distance whether it was a friend or a foe.

With strength that he hadn't realized he had left, Tony rushed down the stairs, to the square and across it. He was prepared to fight whoever was there, if this was an enemy trying to finish off what he'd started, but it turned out to be Coulson. He looked up at Tony, his face grief-stricken, and shook his head.

Tony slumped to the ground next to Steve.

There were no obvious, serious injuries on Steve's body that Tony could spot, just a collection of minor cuts and bruises. His right glove was covered in blood, but that didn't seem to be his own. And yet, beneath his mask, Steve's face was white as a sheet, far paler than its normal fair color, and all too still. It didn't seem like he was breathing.

Tony had to be sure. He took off one gauntlet and reached to feel for a pulse at Steve's neck.

There wasn't one.

Like Coulson's body language had already told him, like Tony had already feared when he'd seen the scene from above—Steve was gone.

"It was the Red Fae. He's dead, too, I think," Coulson said softly. "If he had to go," he nodded towards Steve, "this was how he would've wanted it to happen."

"No," Tony said.

He couldn't accept that.

Tony could accept a ton of shitty things happening to him. That was how his not-life was. He would've easily accepted dying himself. He could've accepted that Steve hated him, he could've accepted Steve never wanting to see him or talk to him again, but Steve couldn't be dead. He couldn't be gone. No.

In that moment, Tony had to admit that he'd been lying to himself a lot lately, about Steve. Those feelings that he'd had, that he'd tried to ignore and play down, that he'd called hope and warmth and many other things—he had known what he should've called them, but he had thought it'd be easier if he didn't. He hadn't been ready to admit that what he'd thought impossible had actually happened.

Even though he'd thought he was incapable of it, he'd felt for Steve something he'd not felt since Yinsen had brought him back to life as the monstrosity that he was today.

He'd fallen in love.

He loved Steve, and Steve couldn't be dead. Tony wouldn't have it.

Tony didn't have Yinsen's knowledge in alchemy, nor was he skilled in healing magic, but Tony's particular set of supernatural powers did mean that he supposedly had the ability to give life to lifeless things. That was what the lore claimed. He'd tried to do it, too, but he'd never succeeded, just ending up with things like Jarvis, beings that were even less alive than Tony was. He didn't want that for Steve. Steve had done nothing to deserve that. He was a good person, not like Tony who had so much blood on his hands that he completely deserved this sorry existence.

Steve couldn't be dead. If there was the slightest chance that Tony might be able to bring him back, he had to try.

Tony took off his helmet, dropping it on the flagstones with a clang. Coulson frowned at him, but Tony wasn't going to to waste time explaining himself.

He gathered all the dregs of his remaining magical energy, everything he had left, without sparing a thought to how he could survive this himself, because what happened to him didn't matter. Only Steve did. All the magic he could muster he shaped into a single wish: that Steve would live.

In what was one part rescue breathing, one part kiss, and one part impromptu spell, he crouched over Steve to press their lips together.

It felt cold and warm at the same time; Tony could feel the very magic that gave him life flowing out of him and into Steve, like the reverse of a vampire sucking blood from a victim. There was an odd tingling where their lips touched, an echo of that electric shiver he'd gotten when their hands had touched at the diner, so long ago.

Then Tony was falling, and as he welcomed the bottomless darkness that he was sinking into, he had just enough time to wonder if Yinsen might've been proud of what he'd done.


	10. Perfect Ten

Steve woke up with a gasp and a start, like surfacing from a nightmare.

He'd been fighting the Red Fae—but that hadn't been a nightmare, it had been entirely real. The last thing he remembered was dealing his former Master what he'd hoped would be a mortal blow, and then, nothing.

Steve hadn't expected to wake up again. He'd felt everything grow cold and distant as the Fae's spell hit him, life fleeing from his body.

Steve opened his eyes to see Coulson hovering above him, looking dumbfounded. Steve wouldn't have thought the man capable of such an expression; he was always so cool, calm and collected. Now, his eyes were wide, his brow creased, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"He brought you back," Coulson said, his awed voice matching the look on his face.

Steve sat up, looking around, trying to understand what was going on.

Tony was lying on the ground next to him, his golden armor intact, but missing the helmet and one gauntlet. His eyes were closed and his face perfectly still, like he was unconscious, or—Steve's gaze landed on the arclight, the magic that had made Tony appear alive, even though he actually wasn't.

It was completely dark.

Back at the Mansion, when Tony had been tired and worn after saving Steve from the changelings, that blue glow had looked dimmer. It'd brightened again once Tony had rested. Now, there was no light at all, just a hopeless void. The magic was gone. _Tony_ was gone.

What Coulson had said must've referred to Tony. Somehow, Tony had sacrificed his life in exchange for Steve's. He had saved Steve, again—at far too high a cost.

Steve had known Tony was a good man. His intuition had been telling him that, even as he'd tried to convince himself that he was being naïve. He'd been right all along. From the very first moment they'd met, he'd been intrigued by Tony, both in his armored guise and as the man outside the armor, although he hadn't even known the two were the same man. Before yesterday, before everything had turned upside down, he'd been really starting to like Tony. He'd looked forward to their meetings. And the way Tony had been, fun and friendly, that hadn't all been faking and playacting, Steve was sure of it. Tony was a complicated person and a tormented soul, but he'd never been the kind of cold, spiteful monster he'd tried to paint himself as.

Now it was too late and Tony was gone, and they could never talk things through. He'd died thinking he'd deserved all the bad things that had happened to him, and that Steve hated him for what he was.

Steve realized he'd left a bloody smear on Tony's armor where he'd rested his hand next to the darkened arclight. He took off the glove and threw it aside, raising his bare hand to touch Tony's cheek. It felt warmer than Steve would've expected, from a man twice dead.

Tony's eyelids fluttered.

Startled, Steve pulled back his hand.

Tony opened his eyes and drew a shaky, tentative breath, held it, then released it slowly.

Steve glanced at the arclight again, but it was still just as dark. The way Tony had explained his reanimation, he shouldn't have been awake or even alive, in any sense of that word, without the magical fire burning in his chest. And yet, it very much looked like he was.

"Tony? How do you feel?" Steve asked him cautiously.

Tony only seemed to notice Steve then. "Steve!" he exclaimed, his face lighting up in the most radiant smile, brighter than any Steve had ever seen from him, with crinkles around his eyes.

Confused and worried as Steve still was, he couldn't help grinning back, not when Tony was looking at him like he was the most wonderful thing in the world.

Tony pushed himself up with his gauntleted hand and reached out to cup Steve's face with the bare one, his smile shifting abruptly to a more subdued expression. "God, I thought I'd lost you," he said softly.

"That makes two of us," Steve returned. He'd really thought Tony was gone for good. He couldn't understand how this was possible, but he'd never been so glad to be wrong.

Tony was still staring at Steve, his hand on Steve's cheek. He seemed lost in thought, his mouth slightly open, and it looked suspiciously like there was a tear sliding down his cheek.

Steve mirrored Tony's gesture, placing a hand on the side of his face and brushing away the teardrop with his thumb. "Tony—what's going on? What did you do?"

"I—" Tony licked his lips, his mouth working like he couldn't decide what to say, and when he continued, it was a jumbled string of short sentences. "I feel kind of weird? I'm just so glad you're okay. I had to do something, so I did. Seems to have worked. Do you feel normal? Human? Or, well, changeling? You know, alive, and all that?"

Steve hadn't noticed anything off when he'd woken up; now that he thought about it, he realized he should've felt worse, with the minor injuries he'd gathered during the skirmish and the more serious blows he'd taken from the Red Fae. All of those seemed to be completely gone. Aside from that, he didn't feel anything out of the usual.

"I think so? I feel fine," Steve replied. "How about you, though?" Steve wasn't sure how to pose the question without freaking Tony out. Finally, he just nodded towards the arclight, and added, "Your magic?"

Tony looked down at himself and gasped. He let go of Steve's face, his fingers coming to rest next to the extinguished light in his chest. "Oh," he said, barely louder than a whisper. "That's—can it mean—I'm—" He trailed off before Steve could make sense of what he was trying to say.

Without another word, Tony pulled off his remaining gauntlet, dropping it on the ground. He then brought both hands to his shoulders, clearly going for some hidden catches that opened his armor, because the next thing Steve knew, Tony was lifting off the golden chestplate, leaving him wearing only a tank top. Steve had no idea what was going through Tony's head, but at least the battlefield around them seemed quiet, so it was probably safe enough for him to get out of the armor.

Tony rubbed at his bare neck, his eyes wide, breathing in soft, stilted puffs of air.

Steve realized that after Tony had pointed out where the gruesome seam ran around his neck, Steve had been able to see it if he'd looked for it, and yet, now, he couldn't. No matter how hard he tried to focus on it, it just wasn't there. Neither was the vertical line of stitches that'd run down Tony's chest, towards the arclight, which should've been visible above the neckline of his top. More than that, the feelings of sadness and loss that Steve had always felt when Tony had let his guard down weren't there, either; instead, all Steve felt was a tidal wave of awe and joy, so strong that he was glad he was sitting down, because he thought it might've knocked him off his feet.

No wonder Tony had seemed overwhelmed and uncharacteristically emotional after he'd woken up.

"I'm alive," Tony murmured. "I'm alive. Holy shit, _I'm alive!_ I'm human again!"

**********

Was this how Tony had felt _before?_ When he'd still been a normal, regular, living _Homo sapiens?_ He couldn't remember for sure. The memories were too hazy and too distant. If he had, he had no idea how he'd handled it all, because all this was, honestly, a bit too much. In hindsight, he probably hadn't been handling it. He knew from his impressive media backlog that pre-reanimation-him had been something of a trainwreck. Considering the way he felt now, overcome with more feelings than he knew what to do with, he couldn't really blame past-him.

He wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. It was sort of like being drunk, except without the physical side of it. He wanted to kiss Steve, and then jump up and maybe run a few laps around the park. He wanted to strip naked and stare at himself in a mirror and marvel at his new body, no longer held together with surgical string. Living and breathing, without any magical aid.

"Tony, how is this possible?" Steve asked him, sounding cautious, like Tony might have a nervous breakdown any second. Which, of course, wasn't an unfounded fear. Except that if he did, it'd be a breakdown caused by too many good things.

Tony hadn't believed this could happen. The thought had been at the back of his mind, yes, as it had been ever since he'd first read about things like this happening to people like him, but most of the time, he'd been convinced they were only stories, inspirational tales passed from one generation of pitiful undead to the next, to keep them going when there really didn't seem to be any reason to.

"Well, see, there are texts that mention things like this," Tony explained to Steve. "My specific brand of undeath is—was—a rare one. I've never met anyone else like me. Still, there are accounts of others, and then there are a handful of stories that mention people coming back to life. There's no recipe for it, no spell or ritual. Every story is unique and different, but they tend to involve stuff like heroic deeds." Also, love, Tony thought, but didn't say it aloud. He wasn't sure how Steve would take that.

He was convinced Steve had liked him at least enough to consider him a friend, when they'd been having lunch dates and chatting like normal people did. Then Tony had gone and given away his identity, and there'd been all the bickering that had come after, and that scene with Zola and Fury where Steve had announced he wanted nothing more to do with any of them once the immediate crisis was over. Tony didn't know where they stood after that.

"So, you saved me, and in doing so, also saved yourself?" Steve concluded, and smiled. That was promising.

"Something like that," Tony said.

"If you're completely human, does that mean your magic…" Steve didn't finish the sentence, again looking like he was worried he'd said too much.

That was a very good question.

Tony held out one hand, palm up, and tried to call forth a spark, but he could tell right away that it wouldn't work. He could feel it, the complete absence of the magical fire at the center of his chest. The source of his abilities had been the arclight, and that well had run dry.

Maybe he should've felt nostalgic about that; he had, after all, been able to do some pretty amazing things with that magic. Then again, he was certainly not going to miss his wretched undead existence, and most importantly, Steve was alive and well again. Losing the skill to throw around energy bolts was a small price to pay for that. Whichever way he looked at the situation, it was easily a net positive.

"Yeah," Tony said, closing his hand in a fist, then lowering it to his lap. "It's all gone. I'm one hundred percent ordinary magic-free human. This time, that's the honest truth."

"You might not have the powers anymore, but 'ordinary' still isn't a word I'd use to describe you," Steve said, a grin playing on his lips again. It looked like he was trying to hold it back, like he wasn't sure if it'd be out of place. That was a pity. Steve had the most gorgeous smile.

"You're smiling a lot," Tony pointed out. "I like it." He couldn't help accompanying the words with a flirty look. He could probably be excused. He really wasn't in control of his emotions right now. At all. And since he was feeling brave, he added, "Does that mean you'll still want to see me after today?"

Steve seemed to sober up a little, but his expression remained warm. "I'd be very disappointed if I didn't," he said.

That was a good start, if nothing else. "So, if I asked you out to lunch again, might you be interested?" Tony tried.

Steve chuckled. "Lunch sounds lovely, but I think there are a few other things we need to take care of first." He turned his head to look to his side.

Between waking up, finding out that Steve was alive, and realizing he was also alive himself, Tony had paid absolutely no attention to anything else but the two of them. He followed Steve's gaze now, and realized that Coulson and Bruce were standing just a couple of paces away from them. Coulson looked like his usual self, Bruce was back in human form and wearing a cape of some kind that he must've grabbed from one of their enemies.

"Never mind us," Bruce said, his arms crossed, looking even more awkward than usual.

Coulson gave Tony one of his very official smiles. "Yes, just take your time. We've still got," he glanced at his watch, "around eight hours until the sun goes down. At that point, Prince Fury will expect to be briefed on what happened. We might want to try and finish the cleanup before that."

Tony looked past the two men, at the courtyard around them. It was as it had been when he'd last seen it, before his… what was he even going to call this? Resurrection? That sounded a tad too biblical. Then again, it had been pretty miraculous. Maybe biblical was about right.

Most of their knocked-out enemies seemed to have regained consciousness, and were sitting up or walking around looking confused. In the background, Tony could hear the sound of police sirens. The Covenant must've made some kind of an arrangement to keep the authorities out of the way during the main event, but now that it was over, they were on the way to check out the aftermath.

"Maybe we should continue this conversation later," Steve suggested.

"I'll hold you to that," Tony said.

There were a lot of things that he wanted to say to Steve, but he had to admit the others were probably right. There was a time and a place, and this wasn't it.

**********

The cleanup took much, much longer than Steve would've expected.

Tony got into his armor again, to hide his identity from the general public. Even if Steve and the rest of the team, and most of the Covenant, knew who the Golden Avenger was, the world still didn't and it was a good idea to keep it that way. Steve was kind of glad that the armor blocked most of Tony's overflowing emotions; it'd been impossible for him to avoid them, and it'd made him feel like he was intruding. Especially since what he'd sensed hadn't just been general joy and happiness over the situation, but partly personal, directed towards him. It had gone far beyond the usual glimpses and intuitions Steve normally got from people around him, and he wasn't sure if that was because of how strong Tony's newly recovered feelings were, or because he was particularly attuned to Tony. Attuned, and attracted. He couldn't deny that.

He really wanted to pull Tony aside to some secluded corner of the park to finish that talk. Never mind the issue of those feelings of Tony's that Steve hadn't been able to avoid—which mirrored the way he felt himself—he hadn't even thanked Tony properly for saving his life. But maybe it was better to get the work done first.

Bruce and Tony carefully cleared the top observation deck of any signs of Loki's unfinished ritual; they didn't want to leave behind any trace of magic, since that was a hazard in itself. They then joined everyone else in the tedious tasks of keeping out nosy passers-by and gathering up the confused people wandering in the vicinity of the Castle, both Loki cultists and Covenant members, to make sure that those who needed help got it, whether it was magical or medical assistance that they required. 

Doctor Don Blake, the man whose body Thor had been inhabiting, stepped in to offer first aid. It felt odd to hear him talk like an ordinary person instead of in Thor's loud, accented voice, but Steve liked him instantly; even though Dr. Blake was clearly shaken after spending days trapped inside his own body while someone else was in control of it, he was eager to help.

Between patching up bruises and cuts, Dr. Blake received a crash-course to the supernatural world—he had a lot of questions after watching the events unfold around him while Thor went around on his quest to find his brother. Considering that he'd gotten pulled into this hidden reality, the chances were good he'd end up permanently enmeshed in it just like Steve, Tony and Bruce were. That seemed to be how things worked: once you were in the know, it was difficult to go back to an ordinary life, no matter how hard you tried.

The man Loki had been possessing turned out to be the opposite of the friendly and helpful Dr. Blake. As soon as he woke up, he tried to make a run for it, but Steve caught him before he made it a hundred yards. He refused to tell them his name, or anything else for that matter. No doubt he was one of Loki's loyal followers. Coulson took him into Covenant custody, announcing that they would take care of him. That almost made Steve feel sorry for the guy.

"I wonder if we'll ever hear from Asgard again," Bruce said thoughtfully as they watched two Covenant ghouls lead Loki's host body away.

"I'm sure we will," Tony said. "Whether we want to or not."

"It'd be nice to know if Thor is okay. We don't really even know what happened to him and Loki, do we?" Steve asked, looking from Dr. Blake to Tony, who'd been the closest to the two gods during their final showdown.

"Aside from 'they went away', no," Tony replied, shrugging his golden shoulders.

"Thor didn't share his thoughts with me, so all I know is that we were wrestling with Loki, and then there was some kind of a magical explosion, and I passed out," Dr. Blake said.

"I guess we could ask Selvig for help and try to come up with some kind of a ritual to contact Thor," Tony suggested.

"That is a terrible idea," Bruce said instantly.

"Maybe we'll give it a few days, let Fury catch his breath first. Oh, wait, he doesn't actually breathe. Never mind," Tony said. Steve could guess he was smirking inside his helmet.

The day was well into the afternoon when they were all done, without a single trace of the battle remaining anywhere around Belvedere Castle. By that time, Steve was starving; the last thing he'd eaten had been the sandwiches Tony's robot butler served him the previous afternoon.

"Lunchtime's long gone, but how about dinner?" Steve suggested to Tony. He hoped he managed to make his voice casual, in spite of the butterflies in his stomach.

"Oh yes," Tony replied enthusiastically. "I don't remember when I've last been this hungry. It wasn't the same when I was running on magic. I know this new Lebanese place I've been meaning to visit." He looked over to where Bruce was chatting with Dr. Blake. "Although, would you mind if we invited the others, too? I feel like the day calls for a proper celebration."

That wasn't what Steve had had in mind, but maybe Tony was right. They'd faced the battle and the tedious aftermath as a team; maybe they should take a moment to relax together now that it was over, if the others were up for it.

"Sure, that sounds nice," Steve said, trying to to sound too disappointed.

"And maybe, if you're interested, you could join me for a drink at my place after," Tony continued coyly.

Steve grinned. Now, that was more along the lines of what he'd been thinking. "That sounds even nicer," he said.

**********

Tony was half expecting it'd just be him and Steve having dinner, anyway. He wouldn't have minded that, but somehow it felt more appropriate to ask the whole gang if they wanted to come. He was surprised but pleased when Don decided to join their little celebration, and equally surprised that Bruce wanted to come, instead of choosing to sneak away to sulk somewhere in peace and quiet. The only one who acted exactly like Tony expected was Coulson, who declined the offer, claiming he was still too busy with Covenant affairs.

He called Happy to get a ride to the restaurant, which served the secondary purpose of dropping his armor off in the car, since he had absolutely no wish to keep lugging it around. Besides, the reason he'd originally started wearing it had been to hide his identity while using magic. Since he couldn't really use magic anymore, aside from spells and rituals accessible to regular students of the magical arts who didn't have any powers, the armor had kind of lost its purpose.

The restaurant Tony had in mind was a small one, and he decided to just book the whole place for them for the night, because he could, and because today was the most awesome day he'd ever had. It'd be so much easier for everyone if they didn't have to watch what they were saying, or try to be considerate of other guests. The owner declined his request first, pointing out that he already had table reservations, but with enough money thrown his way, he soon decided those potential customers could eat somewhere else.

They had an amicable, mostly quiet dinner, in part because Tony was too busy enjoying how amazing food tasted with the combination of properly functioning taste buds and a full range of emotions to waste time on talking. They were just considering desserts when two more people joined the party: Natasha and Clint. Coulson must've done as Tony had asked and told the vampire duo the coordinates to the restaurant.

"Nat! Birdie! Glad you could join us!" Tony greeted them.

Both vampires stopped in their tracks, a few feet from Tony, and stared at him like a pair of wolves that'd just spotted a deer.

Tony had assumed Coulson would've shared the joyful news of his return to full human life with these two, but if he had, clearly that hadn't been enough to prepare them for it. Of course, as a non-magical human, he'd primarily register as food, and no doubt particularly tasty now that he was feeling like a million bucks, and well fed and tipsy on top of that.

Maybe he should've been slightly unnerved to have the two predators give him such glares. Not today, though.

"Stark," Clint said. "You're looking better."

"Likewise," Tony returned.

Clint seemed to be moving a little slowly and clumsily, and his skin was even paler than usual, but considering that the last time Tony had seen him had been with a stake through his heart, that was a major improvement.

"Please, grab a chair." Tony motioned at the empty ones next to a nearby table. "I'm afraid this place doesn't serve anything to accommodate your particular tastes, but the company is excellent."

"The Prince sends his greetings," Natasha stated as she sat down between Bruce and Tony. "He's very impressed with what you did today."

"He'd better be!" Tony declared. "Never mind that we helped the two of you out before you got barbequed, Steve here," he raised his glass towards him, "got rid of one of the worst tyrants to ever torment the poor souls in Arcadia. The good Doctor Blake," he nodded towards Don, "was instrumental in sending away an evil god. Brucie-Bear"—he received a positively murderous glare from Bruce for that—"took out more enemies than the rest of us put together. Seriously, we couldn't have done any of our things without you. And I closed a portal that could've dropped an invading army on us, plus I'm just generally having the best day of my life. As well as the first, sort of."

"Don't forget the part where you brought me back from death's door," Steve added, beaming at him once again.

"That was a very important part, yes," Tony returned with his broadest grin.

Steve didn't hate him. More like the opposite. That couldn't just be wishful thinking. Tony might've never had any talents for sensing supernatural things, but he was decent at reading people. Steve was being nice to him, and borderline flirting with him.

A part of him still felt like that was wrong and he should just forget about it, that Steve was a much better man than Tony could ever be and that a relationship would be a bad idea for both of them, but it was easy to ignore those thoughts today. The day Tony had been having, he felt like he could do no wrong. Today, he'd actually gotten something right. He hadn't brought Steve back as some kind of a sad reanimated shadow of himself. Steve was exactly like he'd been before, his changeling abilities intact, and as far as Tony could tell, his emotions too.

"This calls for a toast! To all of us," Don said, his glass held high. The way he raised his voice, he sounded a lot like he had when possessed by Thor.

"Give me a sec," Clint interrupted, one hand held up in a stop sign.

Don shrugged and set down his glass, looking puzzled.

Clint grabbed a pair of wine glasses from an empty table, and surreptitiously filled them with thick, crimson liquid from a hip flask. Tony decided not to think about where that blood had come from.

Clint handed one of the glasses to Natasha, and raised the one he was holding. "Here we go. To us!" he said.

"To us!" the five others repeated.

**********

"Speaking of us," Steve said, once they'd put their glasses down.

There was a topic he'd been meaning to bring up, but kept putting it off, because he wasn't sure how it'd go down, and he worried it might kill the mood. But he really wanted to do this, and now that the vampires were present as well, it seemed like the perfect time for it.

Everyone else had fallen silent, eyeing Steve curiously.

"I've been thinking," he went on. "We did good today, and I think with a little more practice we'd make for a truly unstoppable team. Threats like Loki or the Red Fae are going to show up again, and someone's going to need to keep them in check. I know the Covenant is kind of doing that, trying to make sure there's some kind of a balance, but they're always looking out for themselves, with their own agenda. I don't like working for people I can't trust."

"Fair enough," Natasha said, looking unsurprised. "After what you said at the hideout, Fury wasn't expecting you to be eager to continue your contract."

"What are you suggesting, then?" Tony asked, leaning towards Steve over the table.

"That we keep working together," Steve said. "Without anyone telling us what to do. It doesn't need to be official. Just that we keep our eyes open and stay in touch, and if there's something that looks like a threat, we investigate it together, and deal with it the best we can."

"Supernatural vigilantes," Tony summarized. "That's basically what I've been doing all along. Now that I'm no longer a one-man army, a team-up sounds like a good idea. You can count me in."

Bruce rubbed at his chin, looking uneasy. "I'm not promising anything. You know how I feel about these things. I'd rather just stay away and not put people at risk. But if there's something you really need my help with, I'll consider it."

"I'm not asking you to go out there and fight. You can stick to researching magical lore, I know you excel at that," Steve promised.

"Okay, that I can definitely do," Bruce nodded.

"I'm not entirely sure what I could bring to this team of yours. I don't know much about magic, and I have no special powers," Don said thoughtfully.

"Seriously?" Tony exclaimed. "You're a medic, that alone makes you more useful than a dozen mediocre mages."

"Both for patching up your teammates, and their unfortunate victims," Bruce added gloomily.

"If you put it like that, sure, I could consider doing some volunteer work for your cause," Don said.

"Great!" Steve was pleased; this was going much better than he'd expected. There were just the two people left, but they were the ones whose opinions he was the most worried about. He looked from Natasha to Clint. "So, how about you two? I'm not asking you to renounce the Covenant. I know you're loyal to your Prince. But maybe you could sometimes take a brief break from those duties and join us?"

Even if they agreed to this, the two vampires would probably still report to Fury about everything this independent team of vigilantes ended up doing. Steve didn't mind that, as long as he didn't have to blindly follow the Prince's orders. He also knew that if what was best for the Covenant and what was best for the new team were at odds, Clint and Natasha would side with their kindred. He still thought they'd make for a good addition to the team, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a direct line of communication to the Covenant.

Clint leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms behind his head. "Tell you the truth, I've never liked Fury's missions very much anyway," he said airily. "Far too much paperwork."

"I can see an arrangement like this could have its advantages," Natasha said, more contemplative. "As long as you accept that we'll still answer to the Prince, I'm in."

Steve had expected it to take more persuasion than that to win the vampires over, especially Natasha. It was almost as if she'd guessed this might happen. Come to think of it, that was entirely possible. Maybe she, Clint and Fury had suspected that Steve would suggest something like this, and decided that it would be a good way to keep an eye on him, possibly manipulating the team to do the occasional favor for the Covenant when necessary.

He was probably way too predictable. He'd never beat the vampires when it came to plotting and scheming. He decided not to dwell on that for now.

"So, we're a team!" Tony exclaimed. "What are we going to call ourselves? The Nomads?" Steve wasn't sure whether Tony's smirk was amused or pleased, maybe a bit of both, but whichever it was, he loved how carefree Tony's expressions were today.

Clint rolled his eyes. "That sounds like a punk band."

Steve's attention was still on Tony, and that gave him a better idea. "How about the Avengers?" he suggested.

"That's more like a metal band. I like it," Don said.

Steve hadn't had time to catch up on modern music genres yet, but going by Don's reaction, apparently this was a good thing.

"Actually, I think that's also a punk band," Clint said.

"Well, it's still better than the Widows or the Hawks," Natasha commented.

"If we wanted to follow the same rules, shouldn't that be the Eyes, not the Hawks?" Bruce pointed out.

"I'm obviously partial to the Avengers," Tony said, beaming at Steve, "but this is Steve's idea, so he should get the final say."

"The Avengers it is," Steve decided, and knocked on the table with his glass like a chairman with his gavel.

**********

Close to midnight, the vampires announced they had other matters to attend to. Bruce and Don took took that as a cue to head to their respective lodgings as well.

"You still up for that drink?" Tony asked Steve across the otherwise empty table. It was more of a formality, he thought. He was as convinced as he could possibly be that the answer would be yes.

"Well, actually," Steve began, suddenly looking tense, his gaze on his hands where they rested on the table.

Tony crossed his arms, the pleasant buzz of the evening spent drinking with friends giving way to nerves, mirroring Steve's unease. Now what?

He must've been reading Steve correctly. It was obvious that Steve was into him, too. Maybe not head over heels like he was for Steve, but there were all those smiles and looks he'd been getting. That had to mean something.

"I just realized," Steve went on, "I haven't been to my apartment since I left it before lunch yesterday, and I don't even know what I'll find when I go there. The changelings may have been there, looking for me. I guess it should be perfectly safe now, with the Red Fae gone, but, you know…"

Ah, that made sense. Tony relaxed again, relieved and a little excited. He'd been fearing some unexpected setback, and gotten the jackpot instead.

Yeah, today, everything was good.

"You're more than welcome to bunk at my place," Tony offered. "I've got plenty of guest rooms. You can stay as long as you'd like to."

He could've easily turned that into a come-on, thrown in a comment about how his room was the nicest one of them all and how spacious his bed was, but he decided to tone it down. Even if everything seemed to be going his way today, it was better not to push it. He didn't want to make things awkward.

It wouldn't have been a long walk home, but Tony had Happy pick them up anyway. He found himself yawning a lot, his eyelids trying to drift shut on their own accord. Probably not surprising after such a long day. He'd forgotten how tiring it was to live in a human body. Maybe there were some perks to being a supernatural creature that he might miss, just a little.

At the gates, it came to him that he had no idea how his resurrection would've affected Jarvis. The butler had been an extension of his own magic, and since that magic wasn't around anymore, Jarvis might've just collapsed into a pile of unmoving, lifeless metal. Fortunately, that turned out not to be the case: Jarvis greeted them at the door as his usual emotionless self, as if nothing had changed. Clearly he was enough of a separate entity that what had happened to Tony hadn't touched him. Tony asked Jarvis to set up a bedroom for Steve, and led Steve to the library.

He'd promised Steve a drink. Today called for something special. He walked over to the drinks cabinet and pulled out the most expensive bottle there, a rare 50-year-old Macallan, bottled in the 80s. Almost as old as Steve, with a price tag in the quintuple digits. Drinking it would've been a terrible waste when Tony had been undead, so it'd been sitting there, gathering dust, for years. He hadn't expected to ever be able to enjoy it, but here he was. If there was ever going be an occasion that could justify opening this particular bottle of Scotch, it was today.

He wondered how long it'd take for him to get properly used to his new life and not be delighted at every experience that reminded him of how much better it was.

He poured two glasses, handed one of them to Steve, and settled in the same armchair where he'd sat the last time they'd been here, when the conversation had ended with him thinking he'd lost any chance of being friends with Steve, let alone anything more than that.

Steve sat down opposite to Tony, and placed his glass on the nearby coffee table without even looking at it properly. "I've been waiting for this all day," he said, fixing Tony with his gaze.

"You and me both," Tony said. He swirled the whiskey in his glass, admiring its vivid honey color, and sniffed at it. He could smell so many distinct notes now, it was mind-blowing. Also, he was starting to get nervous. Apparently, he wasn't as ready for this talk as he'd thought he would be. "You know, when this was distilled, you would've been around ten years old," he told Steve, just to distract himself.

It didn't help much, because Steve wouldn't be distracted. "I wanted to thank you properly," he said, ignoring Tony's comment. "I don't feel like I did that yet. I'd made my peace, I was prepared to die if that was what it took to defeat the Red Fae, but I'm glad that I didn't have to. You put your own life at risk to save me." He paused for a beat, and finished with an emphatic "thank you."

"You're welcome," Tony said, trying not to squirm. Steve didn't know what had been going through Tony's head when he'd decided to do what he had, and maybe Steve would feel differently about it once he did. Tony really should tell him. He didn't even know where to start. "Really, though, I'm the one who should be thanking you," he added. "And apologizing. A lot."

"Why's that? What for?" Steve asked, looking genuinely confused. "From where I'm sitting, you rescued me from the Fae twice in one day while I was busy giving you the cold shoulder, thinking you were as self-serving and manipulative as the vampires."

Tony sipped his whisky, trying to hide the impact those words had. The taste was lost on him, almost like he'd been reduced to his dull, reanimated senses again. "Well, maybe you were right. Maybe I was. I was definitely trying to manipulate you, to push you away, after you found out who and what I was," he admitted. "Maybe I should still be doing it. You know, what I did on that courtyard, the way I revived you, that could've backfired horrendously. I wasn't just risking my life. I could've all too easily ended up making you like Jarvis. Something that moves like Steve Rogers and maybe talks like Steve Rogers, but is even less alive than I used to be."

"It could've also ended up with you gone for good," Steve pointed out. "For a while there, I thought it had. You must've known that could happen, and you did it anyway. That counts as selfless and heroic in my book."

"You don't understand," Tony said. He put his glass down next to Steve's with a clunk, and leaned towards Steve. "I did it because I had to. I selfishly risked condemning you to the same miserable half-life I was stuck with because I couldn't bear the thought that you'd be gone. You mean too much to me."

Steve reached out to take hold of Tony's hand, sandwiching Tony's fingers between both his palms. The touch no longer felt electric, like it had when Tony had been undead, but it still gave him goosebumps. "You mean a lot to me too, Tony," Steve said, as if he really meant it.

Tony took a deep breath. He needed to say a few more words. Just this morning, he'd faced gods and other incomprehensible supernatural beings. He could do this. "So, you see, my motives weren't altruistic. I needed you back. Because I'm in love with you."

Steve squeezed Tony's fingers a little tighter, a soft smile playing on his lips. "That's a very good motive," he said, and slid one of his hands up along Tony's arm until it came to rest behind his neck. "And one that I understand perfectly, since I feel the same way."

Following Steve's very obvious invitation, Tony placed a hand between his shoulder blades and leaned in for a kiss.

Their lips met, and it wasn't like Tony might've expected: the way Steve kissed him back wasn't as strong and stubborn and demanding as he was in everything else, but hesitant, tentative, his touch featherlight at first. Tony was the one to deepen the kiss, opening up, trying a bit of tongue, to fully taste and feel Steve's mouth against his. Forget about the whisky, this was an even older, better vintage that had more flavors than he could describe—peaty, with maybe some notes of cedar and nutmeg? It was incredible; it was more magical than most magic he had witnessed. He'd not kissed anyone for so long, and this wasn't just anyone, this was the man who'd walked into his life and made it worth living again.

Steve's hand traveled down from Tony's neck, along his spine, and then slipped under his tank top to caress his bare skin, maybe a little clumsily, not that Tony would’ve minded clumsiness. Steve was touching him, and that was what mattered.

He thought now was probably the time when a proper full human would start to feel a properly human response to all this exciting and hot action that was taking place—but instead, all he could think of was that the skin Steve was touching had, at least up until this morning, not really been his own, like most of his body hadn't, it had all been bits and pieces of someone else, and—suddenly, the moment was gone, it was too much, and it didn't feel magical anymore. It didn't feel right at all.

Steve must've noticed how Tony had tensed up, because he pulled his hands back, letting go, and sat up straight. "Sorry, did I do something wrong? I thought you'd—"

"No, you didn't do anything, it's not that," Tony said, holding out both hands in front of him, palms facing up, staring at his fingers. "I just—it just struck me I don't really know—am I all _me_ again?" He rubbed at his left arm where he knew the seam had been. He couldn't see a difference there, just smooth, unblemished skin, and yet… "If I had someone run gene tests for both my hands, would they come back telling that these are from two different people? What about my feet? My internal organs? It just doesn't feel right. Those other people, if they're still a part of me—it's not like they can consent to making out with you."

The metallic receptacle that had held the arclight was still in his chest; didn't that mean that the rest of him was like it had been when he'd been undead, too, even if it was fully living flesh again? The parts of him that he had physically lost when he'd died in that explosion in the Afghan desert, those didn't exist anymore. They'd probably been burned to ashes long ago by the hunters who'd killed him.

"It's okay," Steve said soothingly, placing a hand on Tony's bicep, where Tony's hand had just been, as if to cover the invisible, non-existent stitches. "I don't know how these things work, so I can't answer your questions, but I do know that the way you were reanimated, that wasn't your fault. You were a victim as well, just like those other people."

He was, and yet he wasn't; Tony still thought he had deserved what had happened to him, while the others hadn't. And whether he had or not, that wouldn't change how he felt about the present issue. "Yeah, but that's not even the point," he said, frustrated.

He hadn't considered this, in all his joy over his newly regained life. If he got into a relationship—he tried to picture himself in bed with Steve, naked, with Steve touching every part of his body, which he couldn't be sure was truly his. He used to like sex, before his undeath. He couldn't actually remember how he'd felt back then, but he was fairly sure about it. The reporters who wrote for tabloids had certainly thought he had liked it and had lots and lots of it. Now, thinking about it didn't turn him on. More like the opposite.

It occurred to him that it must be past midnight by now. Like in some fairytale, Tony's one perfect day was over and he was facing the gloomy reality again.

"What if I never get over this?" he asked, his voice soft and fragile in his own ears. "What if it'll never feel right?"

**********

"Then we don't do the things that make you feel uneasy. I don't mind," Steve said, hoping he sounded as certain about it as he felt.

He hadn't really stopped to consider what kind of a relationship he actually wanted with Tony. Earlier, before he'd found out Tony was the Avenger, he'd been hoping their casual friendship might develop into something deeper. He'd hoped they could be there for one another, support each other in navigating their complicated lives at the intersection of normal and supernatural. He hadn't been thinking about the physical side of it.

Today, after everything that'd happened, his thoughts had strayed in that direction several times, making him wonder how it might feel to kiss Tony or to hold him close—but those thoughts had also made him feel nervous. Steve had no experience in these things. Although other Fae had held slaves that had been there to provide pleasure and satisfaction, that hadn't been the Red Fae's way. In Arcadia, Steve hadn't even had friends, let alone lovers. Before that, he'd been young and scrawny and not the easiest person to be around, from what he'd heard, and his files didn't mention any relationships. If he'd cuddled or kissed or made love to anyone back then, he didn't remember it.

Tony, on the other hand, had loads and loads of experience, going by his reputation. Even if that was from the time before he'd been reanimated, surely he'd remember some of it. How could Steve possibly measure up to what Tony was used to? He'd be no better than a clumsy teenager who'd never been intimate with anyone in his life.

In a way, even though he probably shouldn't have, Steve felt relieved to hear of Tony's misgivings.

"It doesn't seem fair towards you," Tony said unhappily. "How can I ask you to get into a relationship if I don't even know what kind of a relationship I want?"

"I don't really know what I want, either. I spent decades in the fighting pits of the Fae. This body you see, the way I am now," Steve spread his arms, displaying the muscles that still often felt wrong and out of place to him, "this is the result of fighting for my life every day. It was shaped by violence and bloodshed. I've never used it for anything else. I don't know if I even can."

Tony's expression lightened up a little at that. "Going by the way you kissed me? I'm pretty sure you can."

"Well, maybe that's where it ends. Maybe I'll never enjoy anything beyond kissing," Steve said. He really had no idea if he would. "I can't make any promises. I guess the only way to find out is to take things slowly and try and see where our boundaries lie. If that's something you'd like to do."

Tony smiled, a small smile that was warm and intimate, not like the big grins he'd been giving Steve all day. "Yeah. That sounds really good to me. Exploring these things together. I think I'd like that."

"Good. So would I," Steve said.

They fell into a contemplative silence for a moment, until Tony seemed to remember the drinks he'd poured earlier, and picked up his glass again.

"I think I'd like to propose one last toast for today," he said.

"Go for it," Steve said. He took hold of his glass too, sniffing the amber liquid. He'd never drunk anything like this. The scent of it was somehow reminiscent of those glimpses of Tony's moods that he'd been inadvertently getting today: complicated, almost overpowering, and yet somehow enticing.

"To new beginnings," Tony said, raising his glass.

"And to facing them together," Steve added.

They clinked their glasses, Steve took his first sip—and spluttered. The smell might've been intriguing, but he couldn't call the taste pleasant in any way. The liquid burned at his throat, like he'd swallowed some noxious Fae potion not meant for humans at all.

Tony patted Steve's knee. "It takes some getting used to. You might want to try adding water."

Steve frowned at him. "Is that going to break some etiquette?"

"No, it's a perfectly valid way of drinking whisky. They say it opens up the flavor," Tony reassured him. "Of course, you don't need to drink it at all if you don't want to. I can get you something else. Anything you'd like. If I don't have it here, I can ask Jarvis—"

"It's okay. I'll try with water and see how that goes, first," Steve decided.

He did empty his glass, eventually. He still wasn't sure if he'd liked it, but he could see why people would enjoy the complex flavors. Maybe he'd try again another day. 

During the time it took Steve to finish his first shot, Tony finished his first and drank two more—not because he did that particularly fast, but because Steve really took his time. When Steve was done, Tony was nodding off in his armchair. After the day they'd had, it was no wonder.

Steve kind of wanted to pick him up, carry him to bed and tuck him in, but he decided that would be overstepping the boundaries they hadn't even set yet.

"I think it's about bedtime now," he said instead, raising his voice to rouse Tony.

Tony's head snapped up, and he frowned. "It sure is. Hm, this feels different. Ow." He straightened up in his chair and rolled his neck. "So. Anyway. What would you say if—in the spirit of what we talked about—I asked you to share my bed tonight?" He was actually batting his eyelashes at Steve. "It's a very nice bed. Plenty of room for both of us."

"If you asked, I wouldn't be opposed to it," Steve said. He did his best to push down the anxiety that the idea brought, trying to focus on the excitement that was also there.

Getting ready for bed was a slightly awkward affair, but maybe there just was no way around that. Steve couldn't help feeling a little out of place in Tony's room, like he didn't belong there. He didn't know where to stand or what to do.

They took turns in the shower. It was wonderful to finally get to wash off all the sweat and grime of so many nerve-wracking hours. When Steve stepped out, feeling self-conscious with just a towel around his waist, Tony handed him a large T-shirt and sweatpants without him even needing to ask for them. He was thankful for that; he didn't think he'd feel comfortable walking around naked in front of Tony. Seeing how Tony had buttoned the shirt of his luxurious-looking pajamas all the way up, he probably felt the same way.

Steve retreated to the bathroom again to change clothes, wondering if Tony might find all this modesty amusing or excessive. If he did, he didn't show it. As far as Steve could tell, he seemed just as nervous and awkward as Steve felt.

This was just the beginning, Steve told himself. They'd get over the awkwardness. He guessed most relationships went through this stage, even if the people in them weren't a changeling and a man who'd cheated death twice.

Returning to the bedroom again, Steve found Tony already in bed, under one blanket, with another one set aside for Steve. If Steve had thought the bed he'd had in the Covenant's apartment had been big, that had been nothing. Tony's bed was massive. Steve imagined four people could've slept in it comfortably. Tony hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said there was plenty of room.

Steve hesitated by the bed. "Should I switch off the lights? Where's the switch?"

"Voice controlled," Tony said in a sleepy mumble, which turned into a yawn. "Come on. I can't sleep with you standing there."

Steve sat on the bed, pulled up the blanket, and settled down on his back. He was far enough from Tony that they didn't touch at all.

"Okay?" Tony asked.

"Yeah. You?" Steve returned.

"Very okay," Tony said, and rolled onto his side, shifting closer to Steve. "Would it also be okay if I hugged you?"

"I think so," Steve said.

Tony wrapped one arm around Steve's waist, and rested his head on Steve's shoulder.

"Still okay?" Tony checked.

"Yes."

Not counting that kiss from earlier, Steve had never really been this close to anyone in a situation that wasn't a fight. He was used to wrestling, he was used to limbs trying to choke him or bruise him, to hold him down. He wasn't used to closeness that was so relaxed and so intimate. He loved it. Tony's head felt heavy, weighing down on his shoulder, and Tony's hair tickled at Steve's face, neither of which should've felt nice, and yet, they did. It felt like Tony was anchoring him to reality. It made him feel like he truly belonged. Tony wanted him to be here, and he wanted to be here.

Cautiously, Steve brought his hand to rest on Tony's back, on top of his smooth silk shirt. "Is this… ?"

"Fine," Tony said, and yawned again, his chin digging into Steve's shoulder.

It didn't take many minutes after that for Tony to drift off. Steve stayed awake a little longer, listening to his soft, steady breathing, and marveling at how it was possible that they'd ended up here, after everything.

He didn't think he'd ever felt this content.

Eventually, he fell asleep too.

That night, for the first time since they'd left their ordinary human lives behind, they both slept soundly, without a single nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3
> 
> The story has a tumblr post [here](http://veldeia.tumblr.com/post/163064964426/after-over-15-years-of-struggling-with-the-epic), and a separate post with [Wren's](http://massivespacewren.tumblr.com) awesome franken!Tony art [here](http://massivespacewren.tumblr.com/post/163062985878/my-art-for-the-wip-big-bang-i-was-lucky-to-get)!


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